


A Tiny Favor

by thejamesoldier



Series: A Tiny Favor [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Porn, BDSM, Breathplay, Bucky Barnes Feels, Choking, Cock Slut, Collars, Daddy Kink, Developing Relationship, Devotion, Dirty Talk, Dirty Talking Bucky Barnes, Dom Bucky Barnes, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluffy Ending, Forehead Touching, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Kissing, Large Cock, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Love, Marvel Universe, Neck Kissing, Pet Names, Porn, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Reader-Insert, Rough Kissing, Sex, Shameless Smut, Smut, Spanking, Subspace, Suffering, Touch-Starved, Touching, True Love, Vaginal Sex, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:51:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17033172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejamesoldier/pseuds/thejamesoldier
Summary: You have been Sam Wilson's best friend since childhood.He asks you for a tiny favor.That tiny favor turns out to be a big favor with broad shoulders, thick thighs, a death glare, a metal arm, and seems to only communicate by blinking once a minute. This favor also turns out to be your own personal cockblock. The favor is Bucky Barnes and he’s managed to make you the horniest you have ever been in your life... and all by accident.





	1. In the Wake of Shadows

 

_Part 1_

 

* * *

The reason why you’re in your cozy foyer, collapsed on the smooth cool hardwood floor, sitting on the mass of your tangled legs, quivering in an emotional puddle of carnal hormones, is all Bucky’s fault. Well not  _directly_ his fault, at least.

It had all started when Sam Wilson had shown up at your door one day. One random, quite sunny, normal day. It was a Sunday actually. It was your lazy day so you were in a fairly good mood despite currently being inbetween jobs. You quit the last one because your boss had started to get inappropriately handsy and therefore you wanted nothing more to do with a company that, when you brought the issue up to the board, took no action to fire or even punish him.

So you retreated to your old lake house that has been in the family for generations. The place was in a little bit of a state when you first arrived after leaving the city (New York) since no one really used it as often as they used to (in other words: everyone grew up), but you rolled your sleeves up and happily cleaned it up and got it glowing again. It took your mind off of things plus it was so quiet and serene here you naturally let all your problems drift away. You had a good amount of money saved up so you were in no financial crisis, but the sooner you found a new job the better.

When the doorbell had rung that late Sunday morning, to say you were surprised would be an understatement. The lake house was almost in the middle of nowhere, hidden in a maze of tall green pines and twisty forest dirt paths. Its not like someone could happen upon the place, you have to know where it is to find it.

“Sam?” You had exclaimed in a pleasant surprise once you opened the main door and squinted through the screen door. “Sammy!” You repeated with a huge smile when Sam delivered his trademark grin and opened his thick dark arms wide, inviting you in for one of his infamous bear hugs.

You all but tore the screen door off its hinges as you catapulted yourself into his familiar embrace. The two of you had grown up together and Sam had spent multiple weekend vacations with you and your family at the lake house.

You had hugged each other tightly for a good sixteen and a half seconds until you opened your eyes and couldn’t get out so much as a ‘How are you, what are you doing here?’, before curious heads popped up like groundhogs in your field of vision over the cliff of Sam’s shoulder.

One! Two! Three! Four! …Five?

You blinked hard before the groundhogs turned into people:

_Captain America – Ant-Man – Scarlet Witch – Hawkeye – and…_

“Is that…is  _that the Winter Sold_ –?!” 

“Alright just calm down and lemme explain,” Sam interrupted before you could spiral any further into shock and hysteria, and pulled back out of your hug to hold you at arms length. 

If Sam was bringing superheros to your front door like a box of abandoned puppies, then something certainly was wrong.

“Sam! Why is the entirety of the Avengers on my front porch?!” You had hissed under your breath close to his face trying to create some semblance of privacy. It was hard to ignore five superhumans fidgeting awkwardly behind your best friend.

“First of all, its not all of them,” Sam had began in his usual peckish tone, eyes twinkling at yours obviously trying to make you laugh.

You let out a huff and the death glare you then delivered sliced Sam’s attempt to lighten the mood right in half. Sam’s shoulders dropped in a defeated sigh and his hands, that were cupping your shoulders, fell slack against his sides. He had fixed you with his famous Puppy Dog Eyes of Sincerity.

“We need a safe place to sleep. Just one night,  _12 hours_ and we’ll be gone.” 

You hesitated on the urge to immediately say no, recognizing the genuine desperation in Sam’s eyes before glancing around behind him and seeing how beat up and  _exhausted_ everyone looked. And suddenly you didn’t see badass superheros scattered on your front lawn, but just tired  _people_. They had normal clothes on but they were crinkled and dirty, caked with dry sweat and who knows what else.

“You  _know_ I would  _never_ put you in danger like this if it weren’t absolutely necessary.” Sam had added in the softest tone you had ever heard him manage, effectively hammering down the final nail in your coffin. 

It’s not like you hadn’t wanted to help him but to be honest the whole superhero saving the world thing kinda freaked you out. You were as grateful as any other civilian for their bravery to risk their lives to ensure you get a world to live in, but you still had night mares after the alien army attack in New York which you were there for. You couldn’t possibly  _imagine_ what horrors come to haunt each of the people standing in front of you in the dead of night.

You weren’t naive. You knew they were all dangerous. They were all killers. And Sam was asking you to house them. But at the end of the day they were just people,  _good_ people despite their flaws.

You eventually sighed, knowing you had caved the second you saw Captain fucking America wipe his nose discreetly on the back of his sleeve before sneezing quietly into the crook of his elbow, and the entire group – apart from The Winter Soldier – saying in a mismatched gentle chorus, ‘Bless you.’

“Alright come on in,” You offered as you grabbed the screen door and held it open for them to file in.

“Thank you so much! You’re the bestest!” Sam had practically squealed before motioning everyone to follow.

“Ah-ah!” You exclaimed as Sam tried to take a step past the wide doorframe.

Sam, startled, had looked up at you confused before the raise of one of your eyebrows jogged his memory. His usual smile cleared the hard lines on his face and with a knowing smirk made a dramatic show of carefully taking off his muddy boots, and placing them neatly against the side of the house.

You smiled then held the screen open even wider, “Now you may enter.”

To say watching every single one of Sam’s friends, these gifted crime fighting super-beings, stop to politely take off their shoes and place them soundly in a row after Sam’s before ducking past you and into your house was anything but adorable, you’d be lying. You’d felt, oddly, like a soccer mom with her five and a half kids. Shaking your head, you followed them in and locked the door behind you. Just in case.

–

The second time you spotted Sam on the other side of your screen door, 100 mega-watt smile still intact, you were less ecstatic and a little more suspicious. It had only been a week since you hosted half of the Avengers in your lake house; making them dinner, letting them collapse in the extra bedrooms and couches around the spacious house, and allowing them to indulge in other similar domestic desires was the least you could do. They were pretty beat up (from what you’ll never know). To say it was an interesting experience would be one way to put it. They mostly tried to stay out of your way, probably felt bad for intruding, but you had them warmed up to you by the time you filled their empty tummies with a home cooked meal.

All except for one.

The Winter Soldier had practically disappeared the second he blurred past you by the front door. You had to ask Sam if he was even still there; Steve ended up explaining his best friend’s situation and you let the topic be. Poor Bucky.

“Sam? Hey,” You greeted lightly, eyeing your friend with a slight air of caution.

“Okay, don’t blow up on me and just hear me out.” Sam said as his hands moved animatedly around him.

You pursed your lips, “What a way to start a conversation.”

“I’m just managing your expectations.” He had answered while he held his hands up in surrender and chuckled. The lightness that usually accompanies his laughs never reached his eyes. This was serious. 

“Okay,” You said after a beat and opened the screen door to let Sam in. “I’m all ears Sammy.” 

Sam had hesitated. Your eyebrows had furrowed.

“Um,” Sam started out, a guilty tremor shaking his usually confident tone as his hands knotted together.

“What?” You groaned in a sort of defeated ‘Oh God What’s Next’ kinda way.

“I brought a friend, well, he’s not  _really_ a friend. More like a friend’s friend and by extension  _forcibly_ and  _unfortunately_ my friend too–,”

“Sam what are you blabbering on about?”

Sam just sighed and side stepped to reveal what you had originally thought to be Sam’s  _shadow_. It was an honest to God  _person_. It was a  _man_. It was the  _Winter Soldier_. It was  _Bucky_.

–

**~~Week 1~~ **

It’s yet again Sunday, it’s 12pm, and you feel like shit. You’re currently sitting at the breakfast bar in your kitchen, the afternoon sun filtering through the windows sympathetically as the messy bun on top of your head sags. You’re staring at the tea kettle watching it spit little puffs of steam as the water inside heats up. You prefer using the simpler, more old fashioned kitchenware rather than the fancy new electronic stuff your family is so fond of for…reasons. You never bothered to question it.

It’s been a week since Sam convinced you that letting James Buchanan Barnes, ex Winter Soldier, ex Howling Commando/WW II Sergeant/sniper dude, ex  _dead person,_  to start living with you.

Sam had presented the idea to you calmly and causally, like the notion of living with a deadly assassin who has very little memory or knowledge on how to be a  _human_ and a colorful plethora of possible triggers,is completely normal. You almost  _almost_ threw the entire set of kitchen knives at him.

“ _Sam,” You paused to clasp your hands together tightly in your lap and fully face your friend. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” Your question rotted with feigned calmness. You actually wondered if Sam really had lost his head._

_“Listen I know it sounds crazy–,”_

_“It’s_ insanity _.”_

_“–but it’s much safer if he stays out here to recuperate with you, than live with us at Avengers’ Tower.”  
_

_“Safer! Safer for who, Sam?”  
_

_“Everyone.”  
_

_His answer gave you pause._

_“You think that him living here with me, someone who has zero experience dealing with or hell,_ witnessing  _severe PTSD and not even close to super-_ anything _, is safer than a tower full of on-hand professionals and tools and superhuman friends?”  
_

_Sam didn’t hesitate, “Yes.”_

_“Sam this is absurd! I don’t know how to take care of him or what he needs! What do I do if he has a freak out or night terrors or a panic attack or whatever the correct term for it is? How am I supposed to be good for him–,” You abruptly trailed off and run nervous fingers through your hair._

_You had started to freak out because subconsciously you knew you had already agreed. The weight of taking Bucky in started to press surely but firmly down on your shoulders.There was never_ ever  _a time in your life when you abandoned or turned someone in need down, your heart was too big. It’s a blessing and a curse._

 _“He needs_ this _.” Sam said solidly, gesturing vaguely to you and then the rest of the house. “He needs normal, he needs to do domestic things like taking showers and napping and cooking and cleaning. That’s what he_ needs.  _Him being at the Tower with us scrambling around, all the noise, the people, Steve, the constant missions and zero public privacy…that’s not what’s going to help him get better.”_

_“Okay, Sam, all that aside,” you paused and eyed your friend seriously as you tried to slow your accelerated breathing. “He could kill me.”  
_

_“I won’t kill you.”  
_

_The two of you had swiveled around sharply in your seats on the living room couch to see Bucky, an effortless silhouette hiding in the shadow cast across the corner of the living room hallframe, staring at them._

_“You could,_ can _, kill me.” You repeated again, nerves going into overdrive by the slightly disturbing fact that you couldn’t really see him but he could see you.  
_

_“I won’t.” Bucky responded curtly, matter of fact. A statement.  
_

_A beat of silence passed tensely between the odd trio._

_“How do you know? How do you know you won’t snap and accidentally break my neck?” You questioned firmly still not at all satisfied with his answer. You trusted him about as far as you could through him, which was not at all.  
_

_“I have been decommissioned.” Bucky supplied robotically like that explains everything. If anything it only frightened you further. “Steve instructed this is to be my, you are, this is,” Bucky cut himself off sharply, seeming to struggle trying to form a proper sentence. “I am, I have been_  –put away. _”_

The scream of the tea kettle pulls you from your thoughts. A heavy sigh shrinks your lungs as you force yourself up and drag your feet over to the stove. You had gotten literally no sleep this week. How could you? You had a brainwashed assassin in the house. The spookiest part is that you never see him (once on Wednesday you thought you saw a shadow in the hall move but that’s about as much proof as you had), or  _hear_ him. You wonder if he’s even here at all. There’s no way for you to check, unless you get him a tracker. Which – no, that’s not humane.  

You shake your head and grab one of your large mugs down from one of the cabinets above the counter and pour the piping water in sloppily, yawning as you grab your tea fixings from different drawers and cubbies in the kitchen. Sam didn’t specify how long this arrangement would last (the general  _when he gets better_  statement left unsaid), but you prepared yourself to turn into the walking dead.

**~~Week 4~~ **

You quickly found you could keep track of Bucky’s ghost like existence in your house by keeping stalk of the fridge. At first you didn’t notice because he took so little, but eventually you picked up on the fact that small  _small_ portions of food would go missing from the fridge or pantry. It concerned you how little he seemed to eat.

After a long phone call originally with Sam then the phone was passed over to Steve  _then_ to Natasha, you realized Bucky is most likely starving, exhausted, and very unclean. Steve recited all the needs his supersoldier body required and you wrote each down with shaking fingers. You were absolutely horrified, not by the supersoldier stuff but by the fact that Bucky has been in so much  _pain_ this entire time and said _nothing_ about it. When the phone was passed to Natasha, who is very intimidating and oddly protective of Bucky, she detailed ex-assassin symptoms she went through herself and listed what to keep an eye on. She guessed that Bucky hadn’t slept, maybe  _shut down_  for a few hours, but not  _slept_ since he “moved in”.  

When you finally put your cell phone down on the counter of your kitchen island, you felt your eyes prick and your sinuses burn. Angry tears tore down your face as your realized how much you have been  _failing_ Bucky. You assumed you should leave him to his own devices, but that, apparently was the opposite of what you should be doing. With a half determined half frustrated grunt you push yourself up, swipe the hot wetness fiercely off your cheeks and make your way through every room, nook, and cranny of the house.

“Bucky!” You call out as you clear the entire first floor of the house with no sign of him. You knew he knew you were looking for him despite you calling his name or not. There is no mistake in the loud steps you take as you stride up the stairs. 

“Bucky I need you to show yourself, I’m not gonna hurt you or anything I just want to check on you. I haven’t seen you for a whole month,” 

 _A month._ The tears threaten to fall again as your throat constricts harshly. He’s been in pain and barely surviving for an entire  _month_.

You’re about to call his name again when you round into one of the bedrooms and see a tall shadow out of place near the curtains by the large window with a view of the lake a couple paces past the immediate back yard. The momentum of your emotions pulls you forward a few more steps until you see the shadow tense. You stop and stay where you are, keeping your distance of about six feet.

There is absolute silence apart from your heavy breathing as you try to make him out through the veil of black. After a moment you realize you can’t even hear him breathing, and he’s so  _still_.

“Bucky?” 

The shadow flinches.

 _He will most likely respond to command phrases rather than questions,_ You hear Natasha’s voice in your head explain from the phone call earlier,  _You’ll have to phrase your questions like their commands or he won’t know how to respond to you. The more you get him comfortable speaking and letting his presence known to you, the less you’ll have to treat him like that._

 _“_ Step forward please, Bucky,” Bucky obeys you after the first two words leave your mouth, his movements abrupt, stiff, robotic,  _clinical_. 

Your breath catches in your throat as you take in the ghoulish state of his face and body. His long hair an absolute matted mess, his stubble ungroomed and grizzly, his cheeks sag hollowly from his once proud cheekbones. He’s the perfect picture of suffering. You resist the urge to cover your quivering lips with your hand and crumple to a mess of tears on the floor. In fact you stand a little straighter and lift your chin:

Bucky is  _my_ responsibility.

You approach him slowly, watching for anymore flinches. He does nothing but stare blankly ahead, a disturbing emptiness yawning in the pit of his eyes as he sees nothing. When you get close enough to touch him he widens his stance sharply like you had barked a command and holds his arms out up to the sides like a cross.

It’s like he’s offering himself up to be inspected.

The whole thing sickens you, how he so easily listened to you, how he just sets himself up like a toy waiting to be played with. You don’t ever find Bucky himself sickening, just what’s been done to him.

You try to figure out how to handle the situation. What are you supposed to do now? Pat down his pockets? Feel his stomach to make sure its not concave? Your silence and hesitance is lost on Bucky as he seems to be in his own world, mute-blank- _gone_.

Clothes. He probably needs new clothes. You wonder why he doesn’t smell like B.O but you figure, like with the food portioning, he steals quick showers too. Does he even know how to properly shower? The idea seems silly but after everything you’ve been informed Bucky’s been through, it’s not so strange to wonder.

“How about we get you some new clothes?” You offer softly, standing a little off from his line of sight. 

He doesn’t respond or move. Or blink.

You sigh internally before trying again, “Follow me.”

Bucky resets himself and swings his full attention onto you, eyes now switched on and  _intense_. You walk to your brother’s room across the hall, knowing he’s probably left some of his clothes here over the years but hoping something will fit Bucky. You have to turn around twice to make sure Bucky’s following you, he’s so goddamn  _silent_ for someone with that much mass.

You make quick work of going through your brother’s drawers, finding a worn old college sweatshirt and some plain sweatpants (you pretend like you’re not blushing when you pick up a spare pair of boxers) that look large enough. You can feel Bucky’s gaze burning holes in your back as you rumage. It’s driving you a little mad.

“Okay,” you huff as you turn back towards Bucky with your brother’s clothes draped haphazardly over your arm. One look at Bucky and you knew you were going to have to go into full on Mother Mode. Sam always teased you about it but right now, its probably the best thing for Bucky Barnes.

Without another word you walk down the hall to the master bathroom. It’s usually the bathroom your parents use but you push the irrelevant thought aside as you gently lay the clothing on the marble sink counter and make your way over to the large fancy bathtub. It’s one of those jacuzzi bathtubs that no one ever really needs, but your mother had insisted on installing.

You lean over and start turning on the water, adjusting the temperature to a comfy warm. You shake your hand that’s been under the water a little to get any excess droplets off before you make your way back into your brother’s room. Bucky simply follows you like a puppy, stalking right after you not a half step behind. You realize he’s flanking you, always setting himself up in a seemingly strategic way every time you change direction, position, height, anything.

You want to tell him to relax but you doubt he’d understand what that means.

You fish around your brother’s drawers again until you find his old swimtrunks. Before turning around to face Bucky you force yourself to relax and try a hand at a pleasant expression.

“Take everything else off and put these on.” You instruct softly but clearly, holding the trunks out to Bucky. A smile hides bashfully in the corner of your mouth.

Without question or hesitation Bucky starts stripping. In front of you. A blush  _scathes_ your cheeks, your ears, and even has the audacity to burn over your throat and upper chest. You blink rapidly and turn away while still holding the trunks out to him. You’re not sure how many layers of clothing he’s wearing, but it seems like it takes forever and  _year_ for himto fully undress, and then a full  _century_ to grab the swim trunks from your hand.

When the rustling stops you peak over your shoulder to check that he’s decent. A gasp catches in your throat when the metal of his left arm shines bright and sinister in last few sun rays of the day. The setting sun whispers to the clouds secretively outside the window as it sinks further into the horizon. The arm is truly the most horrifying and beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Thick white scarred skin reaches tight and raised – ominous – out of the metal of his left bionic shoulder and into his peck and collarbone. The God-like musculature of his body seems strained somehow, even with his build so broad and compact and dangerous, there’s an undeniable weakness present. Malnourished you realize. Your heart twists painfully in your chest–

_Your fault._

He’s absolutely gorgeous despite everything Hyrda did to try and take that away from him. Bucky’s face, under the unkept stubble and curtain of hair and plain  _exhaustion_ , is undeniably handsome. You can even spot the crystalline allure of his heather grey eyes framed by charcoal black lashes, shining like rough unpolished gems out from between the heavy low brood of his eyebrows and burdened black drapes hanging off his lower eyelids. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind you staring or if he does he doesn’t say anything about it. Just lets you take him in.

The soft gurgle of the tub being filled down the hall wrenches you back down to earth, stopping you from observing what  _exact_ shade of blue his eyes are. Or were they grey? Something inbetween? You turn and jog back to the bathroom as your mind wonders vaguely what the seam of his lips would taste like. With a sharp shake of your head you push forward, still not hearing Bucky following you but a sort of sixth sense that seems to be developing, kicks in and tells you he’s there. When you reach the bathroom you leave all your unholy thoughts at the door to pick up and grapple with later. You shut off the stream of water, almost having let the bath over flow, and sink to your knees on the side of the wide spacious tub.

“Get in please,” You ask nicely as you roll your sleeves up high on your arms. When Bucky robotically lowers himself into the bath you curse under your breath before hushing, “Wait here,”

You stand up and practically sprint to your bathroom to retrieve your shampoo, conditioner, soap, scrub, and everything you might need. You guessed Bucky hadn’t been taking the time to really clean himself in his showers (if he even took them) if the way he’s been acting, following you around like a trained dog, is any proof. With your arms full of bath supplies you hastily trot back to the bathroom, grabbing a small washcloth from the counter on the way back to the tub.

With a tiny grunt you let all the supplies fumble out of your arms on the ground next to your knees. You quickly shove your hair up into a messy bun before grabbing the shampoo and popping the cap. You look up and –

Bucky is staring at you.

It makes you jump but you cover it with a poorly faked sniff. You blink down as you squirt some of the thick shampoo into your palm, a good generous amount, before placing the bottle back on the ground and braving a glance at Bucky.

He is still staring at you.

His posture is rigid and straight. The complete opposite of what you should look like in a bathtub. You ignore the strange formality of how he’s holding himself and clear your throat.

“Can you lean back and get your hair wet for me?”

Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off you as he lowers himself back and dips his head in the water all the way to his hair line, before sitting back up to resume his uncomfortable looking position. Does the staring ever stop? If not you hoped you would end up becoming more comfortable with it because at the current moment it was setting a fire in your veins. Vaguely you wonder if his metal arm is water proof as it sparkles in the bathwater under the warm lights, but you figure it’s probably proofed for a  _lot_ things.  

“I’m going to touch you,” You say after a beat of silence apart from the slight sloshing of the water in the tub and the little sploshes of water droplets gliding off the ends of Bucky’s long dark coffee hair. “I’m going to put my hands in your hair and scrub okay?” You weren’t really sure what you aimed to accomplish by telling him this, but you also weren’t really sure how any of this worked so it couldn’t hurt. You didn’t want him to feel talked down to, but you also didn’t want to end up in a choke hold because you caught him off guard. 

_‘I won’t kill you.’_

Bucky doesn’t give you any sign of comprehension that he understood you apart from a hard single blink. You take that as answer enough and rub your palms together, lathering the shampoo a little, before carding your fingers wide and even over Bucky’s scalp.

Something clicks. A switch flips.

Bucky’s long smokey eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones at the gentle touch and he flat out sighs, lungs deflating like hot air balloons in his chest and his posture sags. He pushes his head like a purring cat harder up into the soft massaging movements of your tender fingers. The action has a smile blooming on your lips. Bucky’s  _aching_ for it. And not necessarily in a sexual way, in fact you think it’s quite the opposite. He craves gentle, kind touch. Intimate touch. Tender touch.

Your smile falters as you think of how long he must have been deprived of that, of  _this_.

The thought sparks a new flame in you that sends protective fumes to bloat your brain and lift your heart.

Bucky is  _my_ responsibility.

Eventually you finish washing his hair, conditioning his hair, wiping him down with the wash cloth and soap. You actually broke into a sweat trying to scrub some of the dirt and scabs clean off his skin. But you made sure you didn’t miss a single spot.

 _Bucky is my responsibility_.

When he dries off and changes into your brother’s clothes he almost looks…normal. What with the large college sweatshirt paired with the baggy sweatpants and damp unbrushed hair; and the fact that he now smells like you only tints the vignette of his visage a little rosier. While the tub drains you grab your hairbrush and hop up on the double sink counter, positioning Bucky in between your spread thighs with his back to you. You made sure you weren’t touching him in any way that was too imposing, but he seemed to respond well – to  _like_ – causal friendly touch. So you allow your knees to gently tap against the sides of his hips as you tenderly work the brush through his unruly coffee mane.

It took longer than you expected to tug out all the knots but the process seemed to be therapeutic for the both of you. Neither of you said a word, and yet you felt closer to Bucky. You knew he would probably snap back to being distant in the morning but at least you had this with him now.

You hesitate to stop brushing (even though all the knots are out) knowing the second you do the next obstacle to tackle will be feeding him. Bucky’s eyes are closed as the sensation of the bristles of the brush against his scalp and the soft careless swipe of your fingers against his neck, lull him into a weird limbo state. You notice this and now  _really_ don’t want to stop, not having the strength to disturb the obvious rare peace he’s found.

But you know he can’t sleep standing up (or maybe he can but that’s not something a normal person does) so you slow your movements and eventually slow to a complete stop. You bite your lip – enough – when you find you don’t want to stop carding your fingers through his hair. The clink of the brush against the counter snaps Bucky out of whatever moment he was having. You wince.

“Let’s go to downstairs, come on.” You murmur as you slide off the counter and land ungracefully at his side, noticing with a small triumphant smile that he doesn’t flinch at your closeness this time.

By the time you make him a grilled cheese sandwhich, or four, and get him up to the bedroom you found him in and settled, you’re exhausted yourself. It’s about three in the morning by the time you collapse onto your own bed and pass out.

–

**~~Month 2~~ **

Bucky sleeps now. Like actually sleeps. Maybe not very well most nights, but at least he’s not standing like a statue in the middle of his room just staring out the window. The nightmares come often and relentlessly. You’ve tried going in to help calm him when your woken up by the most blood curling screams, but he always pushes you away (quite literally). He says he’s too afraid he’ll hurt you in the haze of his freshly woken nightmarish mind. You negotiated a happy medium where you simply sit on the other side of his closed door with him, telling him to breath and letting him listen to you babble about gentle nonsense. He usually falls asleep against the door with the sound of your voice easing him into a dreamless,  _merciful_ rest.

Buck also eats now. Like actually eats. You make both of you meals for every part of the day, and even look up a couple of fun snacks and things on Pintrest to try every week. Bucky eats a lot. You usually end up cooking for six instead of two but hey, you honestly are just happy he’s eating. At first he only ate what you served him, no questions just scarfed it down like he didn’t know when he’d eat again, but when you told him to eat until he was no longer hungry he ended up devouring everything on the table  _and_ guiltily eyed your own plate of food.

Bucky speaks now. Like actually speaks. The evolution of your conversations started out almost cave man like, single word responses and absolutely no questions, but then evolved eventually into normal socializing. Back and forth questions, answers with more than one syllable, it was great. The more you got Bucky talking, the more a strange broken up 1940′s Brooklyn accent started making an appearance in his tone and word choice. It was absolutely adorable and you’d be lying if you weren’t extremely endeared. Now it is all good fun until one night you’re both lounging on the couch in the den watching a documentary called the Cosmos on Netflix (cause Bucky is a die hard sci-fi fan), and Bucky does a thing.

“Hey doll could you pass me the popcorn please?” 

You had froze while your insides  _burned_. You eventually rebooted and handed Bucky the damn popcorn bowl brushing off his pet name, its probably an old habit. The next day he did the thing again.

“Sugar what in the world are these?” Bucky asked before reaching down and  _wrapping his metal fingers around the entire circumference of one of your ankles and holding it up_ as you two spent another night lounging on the couch watching documentaries about space. He had a comical expression of exasperation and confusion plastered on his face as you felt the plates of his thick metal fingers just barely tick and readjust against your ankle through the material of your sock. 

You almost nearly whited out. The scariest part was how much you didn’t understand  _why_ you were suddenly so _helpless_ and…and…

“They’re fuzzy socks,” you managed to choke out before ducking your head away to try and hide the blush licking up your cheeks and neck.

“Wacky lookin’ socks, what has the world come to,” Bucky murmured to himself as he ever so gently placed your foot back where it rested on the couch by his thigh, and swung his attention casually back to the screen.

…and infuriatingly  _turned on_.

The Thing ended up becoming normal for him, these pet names rolling off his smooth tongue left and right: doll, doll _face_ ,  _baby_ doll, sugar, sweet _heart_ , sweet _cheeks_ , baby girl, little  _love_ , little  _honey_ , angel, darlin’, etc. You were trying to endure it as best you could but the effect they had on you paired with him becoming more physically comfortable with you was ridiculously impossible to ignore. Bucky for sure wasn’t aware how wound up he was (is) making you or he would surely quit it. It was just habit for him and he probably viewed you like a sister. I mean how could someone who looked like him ever even spare a second glance at someone like you? He was a God and you were simply, unfortunately, human. But for now you were going to be greedy and take all the pet names, touches, and intimacy out of him you could get knowing it would end soon and you’d be left alone.

–

**~~Month 4~~ **

Bucky is doing the laundry (you taught him how to do it a month ago and he flat out  _loves it_ and has refused to let you do it since [you’re absolutely not complaining]) when he hears your heartbeat pick up. You’re upstairs in your room, the door uncharacteristically closed shut, and he can hear the soft whir of your laptop against your bed comforter. The sound of the TV show or movie you’re watching on The Netflix squeezes through your earphones. Bucky thinks nothing of it, ignores it point blankly to give you privacy for another few minutes.

You are upstairs in your room desperately aware that Bucky could very well hear you and probably what you were watching despite the closed door and earphones. The movie that your watching has transitioned into a particularly steamy scene that has you rubbing your thighs together and your blood pumping thickly in your ears.

You were wound so tight you couldn’t see straight. The slightest things flipped your switch and made you breathless and  _wanting_. It’s been four godamn months and you haven’t gotten off. At first it wasn’t such an issue, you were a woman and can handle yourself and your hormones. But the longer you withheld yourself the deeper the desire ran and the less functional you became.

At some point you almost stormed down to the car, drove off somewhere remote, and got yourself off in the backseat but the idea was so  _reckless;_ you didn’t want to be  _that girl_. Whatever that meant, you had standards okay! And you absolutely refused to fall to that level of desperation.

It’s not Bucky’s fault that he can hear everything and anything, its not his fault that he was made a supersoldier. It wasn’t even his choice, so you have no scapegoat to be mad at amidst your suffering accept yourself. Because  _you_ were too bashful to do it and have him  _know_ what your doing.  _You_ were too nervous to try it in the shower, not wanting to underestimate his ability and again risk him hearing you.

At this point you were practically writhing on the bed, laptop forgotten and earphones ripped out. Your teeth dug hard and fierce into your lower lip to make sure no involuntary sound came out as you continued to think about Bucky. You were probably making too much noise as it is with your heartbeat hammering like a jack rabbit in your chest and your breath heaving harshly through your nose. This is all so…so  _ridiculous_. You’ve never been in a state like this before over a guy or in general. You felt out of control, silly, desperate, frustrated, overwhelmed. How everything went from zero to five thousand so quickly left you feeling extremely off kilter.

Bucky is starting to slowly become more and more concerned as he listens to your body struggle to regulate itself upstairs. He waits one more second before dropping the load of laundry into the machine, quickly starting it up, and taking the stairs three at a time. As he approaches your door he decides something is definitely wrong as he hears you through the door, even a normal human could easily pick up sounds. He knocks his flesh knuckles against the wood,

“Hey, are you okay in there?” 

You snatch your pillow and bite down on it to muffle the moan that billowed up your throat –

 _Bucky…he’s right there, on the otherside of that door,_ fuck _…_

He hears your strangled noise in the pillow and immediately bursts through the door, nerves on high alert. What if you were being strangled? Choked to death? Suffocated? Bucky wasn’t about to wait and find out. Everything he was about to say caught in his throat when he spots you.

The sight before him is exactly the  _opposite_ of what his fears had concocted in his worried brain, but the sheer  _panic_ of not knowing what was happening to you still thrummed sharp and cold through his veins.

You heard the door open and quickly shoved your face deeper into the pillow, hiding the wanton desire that blackened your eyes and gave you away. The bed directly faced the door, so Bucky is getting an eye full of your ass. The though only made you squirm more. Granted, you had one of Bucky’s new oversized sweaters on (you went shopping with him to get him his own wardrobe a few weeks back and you developed a bad habit of stealing his soft jumpers) that hid your panty-covered bum, but it really didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.

The sweater smells like Bucky, which is mostly the reason you wear his clothes, and you hum dazedly as you get a whiff of his scent from the fabric your burrowing in.

“What, are – you okay?” Bucky finally manages to express after quite simply staring at the worming mass of you inside his sweater. 

You shake your head no.

He’s at your side in a flash, “Here baby doll turn towards me,” Bucky murmurs as he brings his flesh hand to your shoulder and easily turns you on your side to face him.

The second he takes in your blown pupils, feverish cheeks, and parted lips puffing hot air, he immediately thinks:  _she’s sick_.

“Holy cow jitterbug you don’ look too good,” He hushes more to himself than to you as he brings the back of his metal hand up to your forehead, letting the sensors embedded in the plating detect if you have a temperature or not. 

You giggle. His eyes that were intently focused on his hand now snap down to meet your dewy gaze. An unsure smile curls in the corner of his mouth and a dent pulls at his eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?” He asks, glancing over your quivering body.  

“Jitterbug,” you say through another giggle with no further explanation, as you nuzzle your forehead into the kiss of cool metal. That’s a new one.

“Alright I’m gonna call Steve and see if we can get you to a hospi–,”

Bucky hadn’t finished speaking before you sat bolt upright in horror. No one else needs to know that you were on the verge of a hysterical break down because you were unbearably  _horny_.

You bounce off the bed and flat out sprint for the door, practically trip down the stairs and zig-zag across the hall to grab your keys off the counter, and charge for the front foyer. Just before you can push open the handle to your front door you are yanked back. A little yelp squeaks from your lips as you jerk back and feel familiar cool fingers wrap securely around your wrist.

“Where’re you goin’?!” Bucky asks in a frantic tone; he’s so panicked and high strung, the most you’ve ever seen him, that it makes you stop struggling for a moment.

You stare dumbly up at him, melting into the churning argent of his eyes. His hair is swept causally into a low bun and his bangs hang down to flirt with his eyelashes as he stares back at you. His jaw ticks and brings to your attention that he’s groomed his stubble a little, trimmed it with the new electric razor you bought him.  _Christ he’s so goddamn beautiful._  Eventually, after a couple beats, you just collapse to the floor having completely given up.

So there you have it, the reason why you’re in your cozy foyer, collapsed on the smooth cool hardwood floor, sitting on the mass of your tangled legs, quivering in an emotional puddle of carnal hormones, is all Bucky’s fault. Well not  _directly_ his fault, at least.

“Sweetheart you’re really scarin’ me,” He whispers as he bends down to balance on the balls of his feet and cups his flesh hand under your dropped chin, encouraging your gaze up with careful fingers. “Please just tell me–,”

“I’m horny Bucky!” You all but scream in his face, frustrated and mortified tears pouring like hot water springs down your burning cheeks. How had it come to this? You’ve never reduced yourself to such a level before. 

Your words hit Bucky like a punch in the gut and he falls back onto his butt with a surprised huff.

“I-I’ve been, I’ve been horny for four fucking months!” You continue with a little less volume but the same amount of conviction. Officially put, Bucky essentially broke you. “I, you – I know you can hear everything and I, I just couldn’t –  _can’t_ – do that. You would know and then it’d be weird and I want to moan your goddamn  _name_!” 

You are blabbering and revealing too many things and you know it, but it honestly can’t get any possibly worse than this. Plus it didn’t matter what you say because Bucky would never see you again after this. He’ll probably walk out the door any second now. You want to laugh at how crazy this all is, you also want to cry. You’re a hysterical mess. The overwhelming feeling of vulnerability only pushes you to say more, to say anything rather than let the magnitude of what is happening settle in your mind.

“Bucky you, you call me doll and sugar and touch me so gently and you’re so kind and charming and have recovered so much. Jesus! I’m sorry you’re witnessing this but, this is, this is all your fault! This is all because of you!” 

Bucky’s eyes snap to yours at that, his gaze completely unreadable but intense as always. You let out a defeated sigh, the air leaving your lungs calms you down and you close your eyes. One breath, in-out and in-out. With a little start you realize Bucky hasn’t removed his metal fingers from your wrist. You brave a glance back up at him through your wet lashes.

“This is all because of you, this is all…this is all  _for_ you.” 

Your whispered confession hangs in the air between you like an echo of a bell: low, bass, and unmissable. Bucky’s mind is working like hell to wrap his head around everything that’s happening, to comprehend what you just said.

Bucky’s metal fingers tighten a hair on your wrist, “Mine?”

“Yours.” You reply in a strange kind of sparkling defeat. You’re done fighting it,  _it_ whatever  _it_ means. Plus you’ve got nothing to lose because you know he won’t stay.

Bucky searches your eyes with this wild air about him. Frantic. Daring.  _Violent_. 

“Mine?” He repeats again this time dragging you to him, pulling you into his lap in fact. 

Your heart jumps back to life. 

“Y-yes.” You whisper letting Bucky position you, manhandle you tenderly into where he wants you so your straddling his thighs. 

“I want you to say it again,” He hushes while his metal arm wraps around your back to pull you in close, up the path of his straightened thighs as his right hand reaches up to cage your chin between his calloused fingers. 

“Say what?” You ask breathlessly, feeling the bulge of his hardened member against your core as you stare down into those grey heather eyes you love so much. Wait what? You love – 

“Say that your mine baby doll,” 

Your breath hitches and your hips tick forward at the pet name. All cognitive form of thinking leaves your brain as the small, intimate friction against your clothed cunt shoots ecstasy through your veins. You quiver in his arms as warmth blooms in your chest,

“I’m yours, Bucky,” 

Bucky groans when he hears his name roll off your tongue like a promise, drifting in the air between you like a feather. 

“ _Fuck_ baby that’s so sweet to hear, you’re so sweet to me, takin’ care of me and feedin’ me, washin’ me, helpin’ me sleep. Darlin’ you’re so goddamn  _sweet_.” Bucky murmurs against your parted lips, tongue dancing out to confirm his words.  _She_ is  _sweet_ , Bucky thinks to himself.

You  _whimper_. 

He called you baby and sweet and darling and now you’re six feet under. You bring your hands up to tug out the knot of his low bun and swiftly tangle your fingers through the now loose thick locks. You wrap some strands around your naughty fingers and  _fist them_. Bucky’s eyes flutter close, his mouth drops open with a throaty moan, and his hips buck up firmly into yours. You drag your triumphant smile delicately along the knife’s edge of Bucky’s jaw and brush the plush pillows down and around his ear.

“So sensitive,” you whisper against the soft skin behind his ear, dragging your teeth against the spot where you placed the words on his skin for good measure. 

The desire to make him fall apart, to crack him open and expose everything he could offer ignited a flame in your chest. You  _wanted_ it. You wanted  _him._

You feel more than hear his responding growl vibrate against your chest where you’re pressed flush to him.  

“Look at you writhin’n my clothes, devastin’ yourself on my lap,” He says in a gravelly husk as the plates of his arm readjust against your back one by one. The feeling only spirals you further out of control. “You’re a right mess sweetheart,”

“And you’re  _my_ mess,” You manage to respond, breathless as you are, before diving down and taking those lips that have been calling you names for  _months_ hostage. 

Bucky hums against your lips as he tilts his head to compliment the angle of yours, buttoning your mouths together like the seams of the universe would tear apart if you broke away. You both kiss the other with such passion and fierceness that the universe blushes. Bucky nips at the pillow of your bottom lip before you retaliate by tasting his cupid’s bow. It’s all so much. You both are so much. There is just so much muchness that time is having to jog to keep up with you. 

The experimental swivel of your hips down on his crotch douses the flames burning the two of you with  _oil_. 

“ _Oh_ shit, oh  _fuck_ , can I – darlin’ can I touch you? Can I taste you?” Bucky begs as you breathe heavily against each other’s mouths while you continue working your wet clothed cunt over his hard on. 

“Yours,” is the only word other than ‘Bucky’ your mind can comprehend right now. 

He takes that as answer enough and slides his flesh hand down from its place against the side of your throat, over your covered breasts, and trickles to a stop at the hem of your (his) shirt that’s rucked up to bunch in the crease of your hips. Bucky groans off handedly when you give a particular harsh tug at his hair still fisted in your hands at his feather light touch. 

“Bucky,” you hush just before he slips his fingers past the elastic of your panties. 

He stops his decent immediately, “What is it baby girl? What’d I do? What’s wrong?” 

You whine at his obvious care and concern, trying to find the right words as you slow your hips against his and halt your nuzzling escapade of scraping his stubble along your cheeks and neck, anywhere you could make it reach. 

“Th-the other one,” Your voice quivers out. 

“The other one what?” Bucky asks patiently in your ear as you hug to each other close.

“I want your other one,”

Bucky pauses for a moment, freezes completely in your arms. He pulls back to look you in the eye. There’s heavy caution there, fear, you realize. 

“You mean my…”

“Metal one.” You finish for him when he trails off and doesn’t seem to have the strength to complete the sentence. 

He shakes his head and sighs, bringing his flesh hand back up to cup your jaw tenderly and pointedly leaving the metal one wrapped around your lower back. 

“I don’t wanna hurt you sugar,” 

“You won’t.” You immediately respond leaning in to his hand and kissing his palm. “I wanna show you that you can deliver pleasure rather than death with it, that’s it meant for whatever  _you_ want to use it for.” 

You can see the thoughts flashing through Bucky’s eyes, emotions uncoded and clear for you to read. Vulnerable.  

“If you really don’t want to, if it makes you uncomfortable then I get it, I don’t want to rush you. I won’t force you Buck,” You cave as you release the fists in his hair and end up carding your fingers reassuringly through the locks, scratching at his scalp just a little, the way he likes. 

Bucky takes a long deep breath, closing his eyes and leaning forward to rest his forehead against yours. You breathe in sync for a couple beats. The guilt and regret is about to start kicking in when Bucky slowly unwraps his metal arm from your back and carefully brings it to the hem of your panties. You quake like a leaf in his arms with anticipation.

“I want you to love this part of you just as much as I lo – just as much as  _you_ love the rest of yourself.” You murmur gently in the small space of air between the both of your lips. 

Bucky opens his eyes and draws away an inch to really be able to see your face. To make out every line, twitch, curve, and movement that gives away how and what you’re feeling. He savagely clings to your slip up, your tumble of unfiltered words like a goddamn prayer. There is hope in what you say not because he loves himself, but because maybe  _just maybe you_ have found a way to love him. 

You feel the cool metal digits slip past the elastic and press gently down, down, down, until –

“ _Finally_ ,” you keen as the impossibly smooth metal fingertips of his middle finger connects with your engorged clit and just simply  _presses_.

You try to move your hips but his flesh hand flies down from its place by your cheek and holds you steady. 

“You’ll take what I give you,” Bucky murmurs, not meaning for it to sound the way it did but genuinely just wanting to take things at his pace with the metal arm and all. 

You practically sob as you fight the urge to bury your face in his neck. He probably wants to see your face, to check on you so you force yourself to stay in his line of sight, exposed. 

“I’ve got you doll, just let me feel you,” He then reassures after hearing how wrecked you are. It blows Bucky’s mind that he, and he  _alone_ is responsible for opening you up this way. That he is capable of making a lady –  _you_ – feel this way about him again. It’s exhilarating. 

It’s another few seconds before Bucky moves, circling the finger so very  _very_ precisely and slowly on your bundle of nerves. It almost feels like he isn’t touching you at all. You’re two seconds away from losing your shit.

Sensing your rising outburst Bucky calculates a little more pressure against you and picks up the speed some. The much desired friction sends you into overdrive as your thighs quiver around his and your hands pull hard in his hair. 

“Please, Buck,  _f-fuck please,”_ you beg through another sob as Bucky stills your needy hips when they buck again with his flesh hand. 

“Look at you,” Bucky observes as he appeases you by speeding up his finger just a hair more, half a tick, still not able to conceive that his metal arm, an appendage he’s so disgusted with, could bring you this much pleasure. He can’t  _quite_ believe it. “You’re absolutely soaked and begging for me, for anything I decide to give you.”

You nod in trusting surrender and moan for him, basking in the glow and warmth from the bright argent of Bucky’s heavy lidded eyes while you lick your lips trying to taste him on you. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he adds as his eyes follow the movement of your tongue, “You deserve everything and more than I could possibly give,” 

You shake your head in disagreement this time. Bucky is all that you’d ever need; you would be satisfied with just this much for the rest of your life because for one night,  _tonight_ you got to love Bucky Barnes. 

“You take care of me all the time, now I’m gonna to take care of you sweetheart,” Bucky announces in a groan of his own before you can say anything.

Without warning Bucky pushes his thick middle and ringer finger delicately up into your tight heat, stroking your velvet walls with such sensitivity and care it  _devastates you_. The shock of the slightly chilled unyielding metal being so tender and gentle with such a private soft part of you makes you white out for a second; the realization of the fact that all that collected power and ability to destroy is choosing to be so careful and loving is  _exquisite_.

_I love you James Barnes._

You throw your head back surrendering the elegant arc of your neck to him in a sign of further submission and can’t help but gently ride his metal fingers as he works them in you. He keeps his smooth thumb up against your clit, rubbing in perfectly timed even circles as he lets you move. Bucky’s metal hand doesn’t bump or twitch or tire as you ride it, it stays perfectly still while also coordinating the movements of his thumb and the push of his fingers in between your lower lips. His flesh hand though, slides up your side and brushes its rough fingertips softly across your collarbone before he leans forward and starts marking you up as his. He can’t remember how to give a hikey or quite frankly how to do anything he’s doing right now, but his body seems to know. His body remembers, thank God. 

A wanton moan that barely breaks a whisper gushes from somewhere deep and dark in your throat as you feel Bucky’s lips and stubble work the skin of your neck raw.  _Christ_ he owns you, owns you in every way possible. Owns your heart, your body, your soul, everything. It’s his. So instead of saying I love you, you whisper again,

“ _Yours_.” 

Bucky’s pelvis rocks up hard at your secret confession. 

 _His_. 

 _Mine_.

“I’m yours too,” Bucky answers back in the private hollow of your throat, “ _Yours too_.”

You practically faint as your orgasm hits you like a thunder clap, robbing you of every sense except your ability to feel the white hot ecstasy pulsing through your entire body. It washes through you and cleans you up, clears out all the bad things, lights up all the dark corners, lifts away any self-hatred or guilt and just  _purifies_ you. It’s a feeling you’ve never experienced before and it leaves you sobbing Bucky’s name like a prayer. 

The intensity and unbelievable intimacy of your orgasm shoots through Bucky like an electric shock from The Chair, but instead of blinding pain his body and heart quake violently with euphoria. He’s never experienced such  _bliss_ before, not even before the war. His body couldn’t possibly forget a feeling like this.  

He’s come in his pants…untouched. 

It takes a good few long minutes for the both of you to recover enough to come back down to earth. You’re positively draped across Bucky’s sagged form, limbs limp and weak, lips still quivering with ghost of his name. 

“I’m right here love,” Bucky murmurs in an absolutely  _wrecked_ tone, lips brushing the shell of your ear as you force your arms to work and they clutch around Bucky as tight as they can manage. 

His voice soothes and stills you as the aftermath of the violent pleasure that racked through your body just moments ago leaves you feeling rickety and hollow. It’s grounding, filling, comforting.  _He’s right here, I’m safe._

 _“_ You are so breath taking,” Bucky continues in the scratched up grovel of his voice, stroking his clean hand through your hair and moving the dirty metal one to lay limp at his side. 

After a moment, an idea sparks murkily in the slush of his post-orgasmic blissed out brain. He brings his metal fingers up to his mouth, his chin tucked snugly over your shoulder, and licks your juices off his fingers, lazily savoring the taste of you mixed with the distinct tang of the metal of his hand. 

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” You ask in a tired rasp as soft suckling sounds fill your ears. 

Bucky just smiles and pulls you tighter to him, continuing his work happily. 

You groan as the undisturbed movements and silence confirms your question.

“You’re gonna kill me Bucky Barnes,” You huff completely exhausted and seconds away from passing out.

“No I won’t.” Bucky mumbles off offhandedly as he licks his lips, matter of fact. A statement. 

You grin sleepily and nuzzle closer into the safe dark alcove of his neck, “No you won’t.”

 


	2. His Fingers Own My Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smuttiness continues: 
> 
> You and Bucky formed a bond that night on the floor of your foyer, and now you two figure out how to navigate the inner workings of these darker desires that may or may not end up with you on your knees.

_Part 2_

 

* * *

 

 

You lay stiff and straight as a board in your bed.

Well you weren’t  _in_ your bed you were  _on_ it; the made covers oppose you who was very much  _un_ made just twenty minutes ago. You close your eyes and can still feel the chords of Bucky’s thick things underneath you while his arms wrap around you so tight. Your face and neck tingle like an exposed nerve, the skin having become ridiculously sensitive from the rub of Bucky’s stubble against it. After you two had calmed down he let you doze off on him for a couple minutes. You had felt so fucking  _safe_ and  _tucked away_  and at  _peace_  in the comfy corner of his neck that smelled of him, sex, and most satisfyingly:  _you_. The thought pushes a smile on your face even now but it falls just as quickly the second you remember him picking you up and carrying you to your room, changing you into a clean sleep shirt (one of his shirts actually) and grabbing a random pair of fresh panties from your drawer to slip you in after wiping your wetness away with your previous pair. It wasn’t until he laid you on your bed, kissed your forehead, turned the lights off, and quite literally walked out that you were wrenched from your happy floating bubble. 

The bliss was stolen from every fiber and cell of you, ripped clean out of the greedy clutches of your heart when you heard the door to his bedroom down the hall close quietly. 

You froze in your spot before sitting upright slowly while the confusion and fear poisoned what was left of your hope and happiness. Eventually when only silence greeted your ears for ten minutes, you laid back down. And now here you are, alone, your toes are cold, and Bucky didn’t stay. 

The only warning your heart gives you before you crumple in on yourself, clutching your knees tight to your chest against your heaving ribs, is the most sickening curl in your gut that reaches like a hook up into your heart and drags it down. You keep your sobs quiet, not wanting Bucky to hear them. You feel so pathetic –  _rejected_. 

Rational and irrational thinking alike is lost on you as your system and soul quite simply crashes, rockets straight down and explodes into broken fragmented pieces. You don’t know what you expected from Bucky, he’s new to this, learning himself, and  _how_ is he supposed to know of your  _needs_ that don’t apply to everyone? Your need to be whispered to and hugged close until you fall asleep, your need to wake up with him at your side solid and warm, your need to feel his strong fingers around your wrists and ankles,  _around your neck_. Your need to be his, to surrender everything that you are to him. 

For a long time you have kept this part of yourself, these desires, these  _needs_ , out of any relationship you had. Keeping the physical and emotional aspects of this part of you separate, locked away to whine and suffer like a caged stray at the pound. Sometimes, when you were feeling particularly lonely, you would go and unlock it’s cage and let your misery worsen,  _punishing_ yourself. Why you felt the need to punish yourself you didn’t know, but you didn’t bother to investigate because there was no one who could fix you if you found out the answer. You knew you needed a person to love you a certain way, love you  _more_ than normal. But you also knew how rare it was to find a person of such quality  _and_ you also knew they’d probably never get past all your walls. 

Bucky did. You realize this with a start, a small jolt on your bed. The tears momentarily ceasing as it hits you. You suddenly understand why you hurt so much right now. You had rolled out a red carpet and let him march right through your front gates without even  _noticing_. 

_‘Yours…I’m yours, Bucky…’_

Not a half second later your face crumples again and the tears resume with a brutal vengeance. 

He can sense something is amiss. Bucky is standing about a foot from his door, just staring at the woodwork as he focuses all his attention on you down the hall. He knows he shouldn’t do this as often as he does, but he can’t help it. Bucky wants to know where you are, what you’re doing,  _how_ you’re doing every second of the goddamn day and right now especially so. 

Bucky is confused. He gave you plenty of time to ask him to stay when he kissed your forehead and turned off the lights. Well at least he thought he did, he had  hesitated in your door frame for a minute. 

 _Maybe a minute was too fast? How fast did regular humans wait? Did they wait at all? This shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to figure out,_  Bucky thought. 

You did seem out of it though, almost dazed, you looked  _drugged_ with how serene and calm and blissed out you were sprawled on your bed. How pliable and cuddly you were in his arms as he cleaned you up and settled you in your bed.

He smiles as his perfect memory repeats the words whispered to him like a secret,  _‘Yours…’_ and brought back the sensation of your lips pressed tenderly to the side of his neck, a favorite hiding spot of yours he quickly picked up on, as you rode his fingers. Bucky looks down at his metal fingers shining dully in the moonlight streaming like cool milk through the window. He flexes them into the position they were in when they had your velvet heat wrapped around them. The memory sensors in the metal plating repeats the sensation of you on his fingers. 

Bucky’s eyes flutter shut and his sigh almost cuts down to a moan. In one night you had turned a 180 in his mind about his thoughts on Hydra’s metal arm.  _His_ metal arm. He began to imagine all the ways he could pleasure you with it, and maybe that’s not all he ever does with it, but its a start. You make Bucky better. You make Bucky  _want_ to be better. Better for you, better for him, better for Steve, just better. The love he saw in your eyes tonight was just the cherry on top, the final tipping point. 

He loves you. Bucky didn’t even think he  _could_ love anymore. Because weapons do a lot of things but certainly don’t feel, don’t  _love_. 

And Bucky  _loves_ you. Bucky is a  _human being_ , a  _man,_ and he  _loves_ you. 

Bucky aches for you now. He pushes his forehead against the door and stares longingly at the door knob. Bucky so wants to turn it and sprint to your side, buckle down into your warmth and kindness and  _love_. But he knows he can’t, you would have asked him to stay if you wanted him to. He’s learned from the months of living with you that you never hesitate to ask what you need of him, it helped him adjust back into a human mindset but the habit stuck. She never hid anything from him, I mean 1. she really couldn’t (hello a supersoldier lives in the house) and 2. Bucky got the feeling she never wanted to hide anything from him. 

That trust that she bestowed him was so  _so_ precious, he treated it like a rare jewel and locked it carefully in the red velvet box of his heart. He’d die first before he’d let anyone try and take it away from him. With an uncharacteristic gift of clarity, Bucky realized he’d die for you. The only other person he felt that kind of loyalty and love for, is Steve. His heart shutters then  _grows_ as he happily makes room for you next to Steve’s pedestal on the fucked up alter of his heart. 

Bucky practically whines as he falls to the floor and collapses against the door, ignoring the gross stickiness of his cum in his boxers too lazy and surprisingly tired to do anything about it. He ends up not getting any sleep as he replays memory after memory of you sitting on the other side of his door helping him through nightmares and returned grotesque memories. 

 _You_ don’t get any sleep as you cry yourself dry, punishing yourself for wanting the things you wanted, punishing yourself for loving Bucky, and punishing yourself for hoping for his love in return despite his clear and pointed absence on the bed beside you.

–

Bucky paces in the kitchen, tracking his exact steps and stepping on the same ghost of his footprint. It’s 2pm the next day and you still haven’t come down from your room. Bucky’s about ready to explode. He’s sick with worry, frantically keeping tabs on your breathing, your heartbeat (which is a little slower than usual) and anything else he can sense from downstairs. By listening to you he could tell you fell asleep at 8:46am. He doesn’t want to disturb your obvious request for privacy and rest but Bucky can barely contain himself in his own skin. His nerves shoot acid into his stomach as his heart beats furiously in his chest. Bucky’s metal arm whirs and adjusts every few minutes to the anxiety that translates into energy for the arm, that’s pumping thickly through his veins. 

He got no sleep but the worry didn’t start till he came down here at 6am after his shower. Bucky keeps putting his hair into a low bun and yanking it back out, each new set in his pacing starts up either action. Its like clockwork. His steps are quiet, not wanting to wake you.  

 _Fuck_ , Bucky curses in his mind when he completes his 1000th set of pacing,  _I forgot how much love hurts_. 

A small spark of anger at Y/n lights the acid in his stomach on fire, blaming her for making him feel this way. For making him love her so fucking much. 

 _Fuck her_ , Bucky hisses bitterly in the tortured hell of his brain as his heart caves in on itself for the 325th time since last night, with the amount of inexorable love he feels. 

When you wake up your absolutely  _freezing_. You never got under the covers. By the soft tired glow of sun coming from your windows you estimated it was late afternoon, early evening. Your head felt heavy and full of cotton as you blinked hard. Your limbs felt weak and shaky. A sigh rattled through your lungs and sore throat from choking your sobs, your stomach growls. 

You debate on whether or not to just rot here but shake your head (okay ow, let’s maybe not shake our head), no, this is your home and you’re hungry and by God you’re going to get yourself some food. With a pained grunt you swing your legs over the side of the bed before grabbing the baggiest pair of sweatpants you own, tearing off Bucky’s shirt (you pretend to ignore the quiver in your lip), and pulling on your oversized college sweatshirt. The soft cotton on the inside of both of the garments gives you a little comfort as you pull on your favorite fuzzy socks and make your way downstairs. You don’t bother checking the mirror, there’s no need to impress him anymore. 

When Bucky hears you moving around in your room, and then making your way slowly downstairs he has the strange urge to bolt. To run. The coward in him raising its ugly head from the sea of torment that’s been drowning Bucky’s for the past 12 hours. He closes his eyes and takes a breath,  _no_. With shaking hands he brings out the pancakes he made for you from the fridge, placing them carefully in the microwave like they might explode, and warming them up. 

He sees you enter the kitchen practically swimming in oversized garments, none of which are his. His heart presses itself up against the bars of his rib cage, trying to reach you.  

You smell pancakes. It confuses you at first but you refuse to let anything lift your spirits as you slug over to the cabinets, actively ignoring Bucky by the microwave, and getting a bowl and spoon. You reach for the cereal box on the counter before you hear Bucky clear his throat accompanied by the sound of the microwave beeping. 

“I um, I made you pancakes.” 

His voice sounds rough, raspy, like he’s been screaming for hours. You freeze with your back to him. Tears you didn’t know you still had the ability to manage, start painfully burning in your eyes. Your headache gives a hard kick to your brain at the strain in your sinuses. 

“I heated up the syrup too, I-I know you like it practically scaldin’.” 

Bucky’s heart is  _wailing_ for you, he wants –  _needs_ – to see your face, look in your eyes, take in the damage that’s been done. To see how much you hate him, if you regret what you did last night. Is that why you’re avoiding him? Because you don’t actually love him, didn’t mean what he thought you meant when you said ‘ _Yours_ ’? Bucky’s heart cracks like a struck boulder in his chest, the jagged chunks starting to slip apart. Without you to glue it back together he knows it’ll break. He also knows he’ll never be able to fit the broken pieces into a whole again. 

You bite your lip in an attempt to steady the violent quaking of your chin. Your throat throbs and constricts as you try to clear it, attempting to speak even though you don’t know what to say. Air from your lungs pushes against your vocal chords but nothing comes out. 

Bucky takes your silence as confirmation of his fears. His heart of stone does in fact break, cracking and shattering, falling like rubble to the bottom of his rib cage where its left unattended and abandoned by Bucky who’s eyes glaze over and mind goes blank. Who was he kidding? How could he let himself hope that you, someone,  _anyone_ , could love him? A monster, a weapon, a  _murderer_. 

“Why didn’t you stay?” You whisper after three attempts at trying to get your voice to work. You keep your back to him, too scared, too much of a coward to face him when he rejects you.

Bucky’s numb brain doesn’t register your question, he’s too overwhelmed by the emptiness in the broken cage his heart used to reside in. The pain rivals what he experienced at Hydra. When Bucky doesn’t respond you squeeze your eyes shut for a second before opening them and peaking over your shoulder. He looks a fright, skin pale, posture rigid and frozen, and the most excruciating part of the whole visage is the endless stream of tears running down his blank face from wide unblinking startlingly  _empty_ eyes. 

Your heart clenches and you gasp. 

“Bucky!” You rush to him from around the kitchen island and notice how his eyes that you thought were looking at you, don’t follow your approach to him but just continue staring ahead. He looks so broken and blank. It’s  _terrifying_. 

“Bucky! Hey Buck, are you – can you hear me?” You frantically call as you put your shaky hands on his shoulders and try to give him a single jolt. He’s too strong, he feels like petrified stone under your hands. He doesn’t budge. 

“Okay Bucky, baby, you’re really scaring me I need you to look at me,” Your hands make their way up his neck and cup the sides of his face, tenderly trying to pull his head down to look at you. The panic raises your voice an octave and stings in your veins, inexorable. Your heart writhes in your chest. 

He hears a voice somewhere, echoing and muted and far away. Images of grey mountains and silver operation tables, the sound of his own screams battering against concrete walls, play through his mind like an old film. The ones him and Stevie use to go to when Bucky managed enough extra dough from his job down at the docks. 

_Space documentaries and funny looking socks flash across his mind…_

“Bucky! I- _please_ , I need you here with me. Come back to me!” 

_Huh, the voice in the distance sounds familiar._

What’s left of the water in your system leaks painfully from your eyes as your attempts to bring Bucky back from his mind fail try after try. You tuck some of his loose bangs back behind his ears as your lungs heave and ho to push and pull air through the tightness of your throat. 

Bucky’s too tall for you, even if you reached up on your tip toes, to kiss without him bending his head down. You feel helpless as you desperately search his face for any signs of life. 

What happened? What triggered this? You kept track of all of Bucky’s episodes and hadn’t had any this bad since the first month. Then a thought stops your heart and freezes over your brain:  _is this my fault?_

 _Train, snow, falling, Steve…_ Bucky’s mind shivers and his metal hand clenches and releases. 

Horror, guilt, self-hatred and every ugly emotion the human heart is capable of feeling plunges like knives into your beating muscle, stabbing over and over and over. 

“Oh Bucky I’m so  _sorry_!” You all but yell as you  _break_ and  _cling_ to him, your arms wrap around his waist and you tuck your head under his chin selfishly. “I’m sorry if I did something, I didn’t mean to I just, I wanted –  _you_ , I mean I’m  _yours_ –,”

You’re cut off from your confused hysterical blabbering by Bucky’s arms returning your embrace. The solidity of them around your back makes you sob, your voice rasping and breaking completely against the cradle of his warm chest.  

The process of how Bucky finally returns to reality is not due to his brain registering touch, sound, and sight, but because the shards of his heart start to rise from its desolation, glowing tired and broken, but glowing none the less with hope of resurrection. He  _knows_ those arms, he  _knows_ that smell, he looks down and  _knows_ that head of hair. 

“Mine?” Is the word that forms on Bucky’s tongue and slips from his lips, the word that pulls a tidal wave of hope, emotion, sensation,  _love_ back to crest high over the rubble of his heart, waiting on your answer to crash down and rebuild. 

You pull your head out from under his chin, slowly dragging your eyes from his chest, hop over his collarbone, skim up in throat, brush over his lips, climb up his nose, and land finally on those argent heather eyes that seem to be hovering on a precipice. A scale in which you control the outcome of. Your life narrows down to this moment, this chapter in time, this spot in the universe. Fate holds its breath. 

“Bucky,” You hush watching as his eyes stare unblinkingly down into yours, piercing you through and snagging at your heart. A sigh leaves your lips as you cup a shaking hand to his cheek and swipe away the wetness under his eye with your thumb, “Of course I’m yours.” 

Your voice breaks harshly with the strain of speaking but the words ‘ _I’m yours_ ’ makes it out clear and strong. The wave crashes down in Bucky’s chest, washing away everything black and suffocating and dark leaving behind just the clean pieces of his heart, ready to be put back together. He gasps gently as feeling, emotion, sensation,  _love_ pours into the frame of his soul. Bucky brings his flesh hand up, wanting to cup your cheek but hesitates, unsure if he’s allowed. You catch the weird jerk of his flesh hand on your back and see the torn hesitation in his eyes. 

_He doesn't believe me._

You bring both your hands up to his face and gently encourage his head down. He listens to your silent coaxing and lowers his head for you, waiting with baited breath as you press flush against him and bring your lips to brush over his once in an intimate swipe. A beat of silence before you cave and your lips press longingly to his. You both sigh in shared relief at the much desired assurance, sealing your words into the seam of both of your lips and turning them into a promise. 

The kiss stays chaste but its  _powerful._ It sends a jolt down both your spines and warms your entire bodies. 

You pull away, just a centimeter, and whisper against the pillow of his bottom lip, “I love you.” 

Bucky wants to cry again but not because he’s in pain. 

He brings both his hands up to cradle your face and strokes your cheekbones with his metal and flesh thumbs, “I love you too, yours too.” 

“I’m yours Bucky Barnes,” you try to say through a wet chuckle of absolute joy, your voice cracking and breaking every other word. 

Bucky’s heart slowly but surely,  _cautiously_ , puts itself back together. 

“What’s wrong with your voice doll?” Bucky questions in concern as his own voice gravels and drags from his vocal chords. 

“What’s wrong with yours?” You respond in matching wrecked tone. 

You both giggle.  _Giggle_. And suddenly the world is right again, snaps back like a whip to its original glamour and wonder. The headache unfortunately doesn’t find the righting of the world all that amusing and gives your brain another stubborn kick from lack of sleep, water, and food. 

You groan and nuzzle your nose against Bucky’s to counterattack the pain with much needed comfort. 

“My head hurts.” You say no louder than a broken whisper. If you could manage a sturdier tone you would, but everything except your glowing heart seems to be malfunctioning at the moment. 

That’s all you need to say before Bucky kisses you deep and passionate one more time, before pulling away (but keeping you locked to his side) and grabbing two full glasses of water, Ibuprofen, and a Cliff bar before making you consume all of it. And by making you consume it you mean Bucky feeding you and holding the cup for you. This kind of care made your head spin before falling and landing in a big pile of fluff in your brain. Your head is clouded in a rose mist, only registering anything Bucky. 

Bucky notices how pliable you become, like a switch suddenly turned on (or off depending on how you look at it) and you get that same serene almost drugged look on your face. Happy. At peace. He smiles. 

When he’s finished with you in the kitchen and shoves four Cliff bars down his own throat and skulls back five glasses of water, he picks you up bridal style and walks you up to your room. Your head lolls heavily against his chest as he walks up the stairs; your hands cling subconsciously to his shirt, clutching the soft material in a death grip. When he arrives in your room, he sees that your covers are made and how he left them when he left you last night. His heart clenches weakly with guilt. 

He pulls the covers back once he sets you sitting up propped against his side on the bed, and moves the both of you under the cotton sheets. No way would he leave you this time, you’d have to shoot him – multiple times – before he left your side. You hum contentedly as he pulls you into him, stretching his neck long knowingly as you curl into him and tuck your face into your favorite spot. Bucky smiles fondly as you nuzzle his neck with your nose and peck the skin against your lips tenderly. He wraps his flesh arm around your waist, hauling you as close as possible to his front, and snaking his metal arm under your pillow. You tangle your legs with his, a soft chuckle surprising itself out of Bucky’s lips when he feels your fuzzy sock covered toes wiggling in-between his calves before settling. 

You both sigh at how content you feel, how  _safe_ and finally _at home_ you are. Bucky thought he’d not be able to sleep with you so close, not because he’s not comfortable with you but because apart of him is still afraid he’ll wake up from a nightmare with you dead and your snapped neck between his fingers. But he actually falls asleep before you do, not quite snoring but his breathing heavy and pushing harshly through his tired throat. You smile before pulling back just enough to see his face, uncurling a hand from against his chest you stroke some of his pesky bangs out of their tangle with his eyelashes and brush them back behind his ear. 

You press your lips softly against his slightly parted sleeping ones before burrowing your face against his neck and letting merciful rest take you too. 

–

You wake up in the same exact position you fell asleep in. The strain of emotion and trauma of the past 24 hours taking a toll on both of you. Surprisingly Bucky is still asleep, his breathing even and deep as you hear it whisper up and down his throat. The comforting slow pulse of his heartbeat in your ear and the rise and fall of his big chest against your hands is the most calming thing you think you’ve ever experienced. You don’t think Bucky’s ever slept so soundly before. 

You don’t dare move, not wanting to give up this peaceful moment for anything. You don’t know what time it is but honestly you could care less. Time doesn’t matter, not with a sleeping cozy Bucky in your arms. The heat radiating off his body is more intense than you thought, must be a supersoldier thing. You’re still in your sweatshirt, sweatpants, and fuzzy socks under cotton sheets, but you’re not hot. In fact you can feel the chill in the air hovering impatiently outside the covers just waiting to steal your warmth from you. A breeze whistle past the window, it looks like it might rain or maybe snow. You cuddle in closer to Bucky, his arms immediately tightening around you and trying to practically mold you to his front. You don’t mind, not a fucking bit. With a content smile you shift slightly and –

 _Oh_. 

Your cheeks redden and a flare of your own arousal kick starts in your core. Bucky’s  _hard._

It’s the morning so yeah okay, but it’s also the morning and you’ve been pressed flush to his front all night or however long you two have been asleep. For a moment you weigh the pros and cons of being a bit mischievous. You haven’t really had the opportunity to show Bucky this specific side of you yet, not in a sexual way at least. Your teeth snare your bottom lip and you smile against Bucky’s neck as you squirm down to line your hips up with his.  

You experimentally rock your hips slow and tender against his hard on  _once_ , stilling all your movement except the brush your lips over his collarbone light and feathery. Bucky sighs heavily and his face searches for yours that was tucked into his neck, huffing still asleep when he can’t find you. You hold back a snicker against the hollow of his throat before spreading your fingers over his pecks softly and dragging just the tips of your fingers, a barely there touch, down the hard cut lines of his torso. His abs clench under the shirt he fell asleep in. You pull your hips away before pushing back against him. 

A groan emits from a place low and dark in his throat at the pressure, his hand that was wrapped around your waist drags down your back. His fingers dig slow, wide, and hard into your ass,

“Ох ебать меня.” (Oh  _fuck_ me.)

You shiver at the bass grovel of the foreign words vibrating their way out of Bucky’s sleep raspy throat. You guessed it was Russian, it wasn’t the first time he spoke it around you but it had never sounded like  _that_ before. Bucky wasn’t fully awake but he knew what the hell he was feeling. You sucked a mark in the dip of his collarbone as you repeated the action of your hips, pressing against him hard and keeping your pelvis there. 

“I love you Bucky.” Were the first words out of your mouth, the declaration of love whispering over the mark you just left that is quickly fading. 

Bucky pauses as his just woken up hazy brain works to digest your words. Once it does his cock throbs and jerks his hips against yours. 

“Ебать я тоже тебя люблю. Ты моя куколка.” (Fuck I love you too. You’re mine baby doll.) He practically growls as he opens his eyes, burning silver melting your heart, and pushes you off your sides and hovers on top of you. 

You’re left breathless by his raspy Russian and authoritative movements, “Fuck I love when you talk Russian to me,” 

Bucky chuckles at your teasing joke, catching the happy sparkle in your eye as you watch him laugh above you. 

“I’ll teach it to you and then we can both speak Rus–,”

You cut him off with a chaste, delighted kiss, arms flinging around his neck.

_He wants to teach me Russian._

You have absolutely no idea why this makes you so happy, but it does and like most things, you don’t question it. The kiss quickly heads for the gutters, turning filthy as you angle your heads to deepen the kiss and tongues delve into the other’s open mouths. When he grinds his hips down into you, metal hand keeping your hips still, the right one slides up from your other hip, to the base of your neck –

You almost white out before your reality dims the lights of ecstasy.

His hand just drags pass your arched offered throat, and slips into your hair to pull. You try to ignore the sag of disappointment in your chest when you think of how utterly  _good_ and  _safe_ and  _his_ you would have felt having his thick warm fingers wrapped around your sensitive marked up (by  _his_  hickies and  _his_ beard burn from the night on the floor of the foyer) neck. 

Bucky doesn’t notice this slight catch as he is quite busy rocking his strong hips down into yours and overwhelming you with dirty kisses. When you’re just about to run out air, your lungs throbbing once, twice, he breaks away from you. You don’t think he knows or meant to, but in a way he just made you hold your breath. 

With a moan the waters of pleasure part, hold for a beat, and then crash together and engulf you. Making your head swim wonderfully and taking you higher. You’re his. Everything is his. Your heart, your soul, your mind, your body, your throat, your breath…

Bucky stalls for a second, seeing something churning in your eyes and ravaging your insides. It confuses him and makes him worry a little before you reel back, your eyes gaining awareness again. 

“Why’d you stop?” You hush breathlessly searching both his eyes. Something cold zings in your warm heart. “What’d I do?” 

 _Oh no, oh God, he’s seen me_  like that,  _he must be disgusted with me now_. 

You begin to panic. 

“Hey hey hey,” Bucky murmurs hurriedly, seeing the beginnings of fear grow scarily quick in your irises. Both hands come to hold your face, “You did nothin’ wrong sugar, I just, you just seemed out of it for a second there.” 

You remain quiet hoping to just pretend like you don’t need what you need, and move on but Bucky’s eyes see right through. They always have. 

“You know I, I have been doin’ some research recently,” he begins neutrally, carefully, not wanting to make you feel rejected or weird or strange. In fact Bucky hopes,  _clings_ to the possibility that you need what he thinks you need. “Actually scratch that, I love you. And you are mine, darlin’ and I’m yours. So there’s no need for you to get all closed off and ashamed because I, I  _need_ you. Alright? I need you and I need to be here  _for_ you. We don’t have to put names on it or nothin’ but I need you and you need me.” 

Bucky sighs in slight frustration with himself, feeling completely useless trying to explain this in a way that makes sense.

“It don’t matter to me if you want things other dames might not want. Cause I think I want,  _need_ , that feelin’ just as much as you do.” 

You lay below him in awe, genuinely chewing over his words and getting lost in those eyes of his and the calming hum of his voice and the reassuring pressure of his body holding yours down, tethering you to earth. 

“I said the word need a lot didn’t I?” Bucky starts after a moment of silence, reading your eyes as you stare at him. He sighs again and strokes the backs of his fingers adoringly up and down the arrow of your cheekbones. “You know I love you right?” 

Pink colors your cheeks under his flesh and metal fingers, “Yeah Buck, I just can’t believe it.” 

“Well I have no problem remindin’ you dollface, although if we’re bein’ honest I think I’m more surprised a monster like me got a beauty like you to fall for me.” 

You roll your eyes at the unfathomable idea that Bucky would ever struggle getting someone to fall in love with him. With an internal sigh you turn your cheek to kiss his metal fingers before doing the same to the other one. 

“I like my men a little dark,” You admit before wrapping your legs around him, placing your heels in the soft pocket behind Bucky’s kneecaps. 

“A little?” Bucky scoffs but lets you trace your hands all the way from his forearms to the base of his neck.

“Yeah. I also like em’ with long dark brown hair about,” You hum as take a stray strand and stretch it to its full length, “To his shoulders. With pretty grey eyes–,”

“My eyes ain’t pretty,”

“–with long black eyelashes–,”

“My eyelashes are normal!”

“–and a great smile, and a jaw that looks kinda like yours and stubble about the same as yours, with big calloused hands, and one regular arm and one absolutely beautiful metal one, and a supersoldier appetite and stamina–,”

“Okay okay okay!” Bucky laughs, covering your mouth with his metal hand to stop you from continuing on. Your eyes sparkle up at him with so much  _love_ Bucky can barely wrap his head around the fact that it’s all for  _him_. “I get it, you love me.” 

You lick his metal palm but earn nothing but a withered look in return. 

“What a child,” He chides with a mock condescending shake of his head. 

“What an old man,” you quip right back, your words mumbled by the metal squishing your lips. 

A smile glows bright on his face, there is so much  _love_ in Bucky’s eyes you can barely wrap your head around the fact that’s all for  _you_. The air you breathe out of your nose fogs against the side of his metal hand against your mouth. Your eyes connect. The atmosphere grows dense and intimate. 

With a shaky breath Bucky removes his metal hand from your mouth, he strokes your jaw before placing it by your head and shifting his weight onto his metal elbow. You just wait with baited breath as he now lifts his flesh hand and brings it steadily to your collarbone. He doesn’t break eye contact with you as he slowly glides it up to your throat, pausing when his palm covers the majority of the offered skin before putting a careful calculated bit of pressure down and tightening his fingers to wrap securely around your neck. 

Your pupils blow out and a violent wave of arousal rolls through you. Wetness starts to collect between your legs. You let out the breath you were holding and find that it’s not stopped by his pressure but scrapes a little on the way out, you take a breath in and the air  _drags._

You whimper.

Bucky shutters out a groan as your throat works under his hand, he  _feels_ your breath travel up and down under the roughened but sensitive palm of his flesh hand against your neck. He thought it would pain him to grip your neck in his hand like this but it’s different, its better, its good –

You take another slow, gently labored breath in and let the air hum on the way back out, the noise vibrating along the column of your throat like a secret against his hand. 

It’s  _addictive_. 

“You wanna be mine so bad don’t ya sweetheart,” Bucky says in an awed whisper, his tone not condescending at all like you thought it might be but quite the opposite. He sounds astonished, like Bucky is just starting to realize how much you love him, truly. 

You nod as best as you can with his hand on your neck, holding you, tethering you, owning you,  _loving_ you. 

“Yours.” Comes your responding whisper, the words caressing Bucky’s palm before reaching his ears. 

He shivers. 

“You got no idea how much I’m yours too baby doll, anything you want and its yours sugar.” 

“Just want you Buck,” You sigh flying higher and higher into those much craved blissful clouds as he leans down and gently kisses you, keeping his fingers wrapped around your throat. 

He’s so tender but  _firm_ it drives you a little insane. You know he won’t ever hurt you, you finally understand that he’ll give you what you want, what you  _need_. Your heart swells and your eyes flutter shut. 

 _Finally_. 

“Alright baby before you bliss out on me I need to know that  _you_ know what to do if something is too much or you want more.” 

“Green for good, yellow for slow down, red for stop.” You immediately list off, having read and seen enough porn to know the basics. 

Bucky stalls for a second, “Okay colors got it, that’s good. You listened so well baby girl, answered me right away.” 

You absolutely preen under the praise. 

“I’m gonna take care of you, promise doll, but this is new for me and I’m learning from scratch but I’m gonna try my best–,”

“Bucky,” You interrupt him softly, your voice a little labored from his hand on your throat still, while you lift your hand and rub your thumb against the lines pulled taught in-between his eyebrows until he relaxes the worried muscles. “It’s just me, it’s just  _us_. You don’t have to do anything fancy yet, just make love to me. I’ll want and be happy with whatever you give me because I’m yours. I only need you, nothing else.” 

Bucky’s heart beats in time with yours as meaningful silence caresses the moment and your eyes lock. You both simply melt. 

“Alright angel,” He agrees around a private smile, a smile just for you. 

Bucky bends down and kisses you once more before removing his hand from your throat. You whine in protest but let Bucky lead, your his and he’ll take care of you. There’s nothing for you to worry about. 

“Strip,” Bucky asks before adding with a slight blush, “please.” 

You roll your eyes at his bashfulness but does as he says, removing your clothes quickly and hardly in a sexy manner. I mean how does one seductively remove a sweatshirt? Or suggestively wiggle out of sweatpants? 

Bucky grins broad and wide as your struggle a little, falling deeper in love with you by the second. 

“Do you need help darlin?” 

“No!” You huff stubbornly as your head and arms get caught in your sweatshirt around your neck. “I am perfectly capable of removing my clothes for the man I love so give me a fucking moment please,” 

Bucky rolls his lips in attempting smother the peel of endeared laughter bubbling in his throat as he watches you fire off a few colorful phrases aimed apparently at the piece of clothing. Your torso is exposed to Bucky as you battle it out with your sweatshirt, allowing his eyes to roam hungrily over your old tattered sports bra which shouldn’t be sexy but is, and your mid-drift down to the elastic of your sweatpants. 

With a careful shove, Bucky pushes you over and you land with a surprised yelp on your back, head still caught in a tangle but one arm seems to have escaped the fray. He shakes his head as he leans over you and starts dropping little kisses over your stomach and near the band of your sports bra then down to your sweatpants. You freeze in your actions and whine, the noise muffled a little by the fabric. 

“Ты так безнадежно моя любовь.” (You’re hopeless my love.) Bucky murmurs as he easily wrenches you free with his metal hand and tosses the sweatshirt somewhere off the edge of the bed. 

You pout and cross your arms playfully, looking down at him mapping the landscape of your torso with his lips. 

“What’d you say?” You ask in an ornery mumble. 

When he looks up at you under his lashes, fingers tucking under the lose waist band of your sweats, he smirks against your skin. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

“Hey I’m the one getting naked here so I think if you wanna get some tonight you better tell me what it is you said.” You demand rebelliously still looking down the reach of your body at him. 

He stills like a panther curled up over its prey, muscles bunched up and eyes dead set on the kill: you. Without warning and quicker than your human brain can process he flips you over onto your stomach, yanks down your sweats and panties, and gives you a hard single spank with his flesh hand. 

You lose coherentness for a moment as you register what just happened, and before you can moan Bucky’s name his  _metal hand_ reaches around and cups under your neck before lifting your head up, arching your back so prettily, then his mouth presses to your ear,

“You’ll take what I give you sugar ‘cause you’re mine. I promised I’d take care you, it’s my privilege to give you what you need, so let me baby, let me give you what you need.”  

Your eyes flutter shut and you practically purr. Bucky sends you higher. 

“That’s it baby doll, surrender it all to me I got you.” He murmurs tenderly in your ear, watching in awe as you lift your hips and offer your ass to him. “So goddamn beautiful,” 

_Smack!_

You don’t even flinch at the contact but just groan and arch your back more, asking for it. Bucky admires the pink hand print blooming on your ass cheek. A foreign but additive possessive twinge flares in his heart.  _That’s right, you’re his._  He hadn’t been thinking much when he flipped you over and spanked you, it was just instinct. He worried when you didn’t respond at first, but your body shivered and he smelt your slick in between your legs. 

“You like this baby? Like my hand against your ass?” 

_Smack!_

You hum a yes and scramble to gather your quickly falling apart brain. 

“I’ve got you sweetheart let go, it’s alright I’ll put you back together.” Bucky hushes against the sensitive spot behind your ear somehow reading your mind and you stiffen for a beat, before you shatter completely in his arms and go limp. “There it is, I’ve got you sweetheart,” 

Your bits and pieces break apart and its  _heaven_. There is no weight on your shoulders, no responsibility, no troubles, no problems, no nothing. Just bliss and Bucky. Your body pricks with the newfound freedom and your core  _gushes_ as your hips buck down against the bed, searching for friction. 

“C’mere baby,” Bucky says as he tenderly manhandles your pliant form back over and leans up to look into your glassy eyes. “Color?” 

 _Bucky’s asking you for your color, important_ , Your brain works furiously and forms a single word, “Green.”

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He praises immediately before locking your lips with his for a loving kiss. 

Bucky breaks away from you despite you chasing after him with needy lips, and removes your sports bra to leave you completely bare beneath him. A stunned breath catches in his throat as he takes you in, in all your glory. 

“So gorgeous,” He murmurs more to himself before diving down to latch onto one of your nipples and using his metal hand to torment the other. 

You keen at his ministrations and arch your breasts into his touch, hungry for more of everything and anything Bucky is willing to give you. He holds all your bits and pieces in his palms right now, you gave them to him because you trust he’ll put you back together a better, happier you. 

Your dazed blurry bliss warps then narrows when you feel a puff of warm breath against your wet folds. Bucky’s between your legs staring hungrily at your core, he licks his lips, you  _whine_. Ignoring you he reaches his flesh hand up and uses two fingers to part your lower lips gently before bringing his metal hand up and pressing the cool pad of his solid pointer finger against your clit. He doesn’t give you time to adjust to the immense pleasure you feel at just the mere  _contact,_ and just starts circling the pad of his fingertip in smooth generous circles. 

Bucky’s laying on his stomach and he’s staring at your wet pussy and he’s never had his mouth water this much, even for food. He watches his metal finger make you writhe, basically teasing himself before caving and removing his metal hand and simply licking a long flat hard stripe up from your slit to the hood of your clit with his tongue. 

“Oh  _fuck_ ,” You hush as your eyes clench tight with the euphoria and your hands immediately fly to his hair, bunching the strands together and fisting the locks in shaking fists. 

Bucky takes your clit into the warm snare of his lips and makes you feel good as sin as he sucks and flicks at it with his tongue. You moan low and needy for him; watching him between your legs and devouring your cunt was enough to kill you but when Bucky pulls away and snaps those argent eyes up at you, your breath pausing in your throat, and  _blows_ on your exposed clit with a cool stream of air from the circle of his lips you nearly come. 

You can feel your wetness slicking down from your slit and dirtying the comforter. Bucky groans low and guttural at the sight of your beautiful face pinched up in ecstasy. He rubs his metal finger against your clit again fast this time, his finger blurring, and watching you rise to the brink of climax before pulling all touch away from you. You cry out in disappointment and writhe as the pleasure slips back from the tipping point, you find his eyes – solid steel – and  _sob_. 

“You wanna come baby doll?” Bucky asks keeping all forms of contact strictly away from you except your hands in his hair, he allowed you that. Plus he likes them there, they ground  _him_. 

You nod quickly before he even finishes his sentence.

“I wanna hear you ask me for it,” Bucky doesn’t mention the word beg, doesn’t quite know how much or far to push you. He’s still learning your limits and his, he decides to play it a little safe. 

“Please Bucky, I’m yours, please,” You whimper as another sob heaves your chest, releasing and fisting his hair in your fingers like a massage as you speak. Despite the desperation in your tone, your body is still and serene, waiting for Bucky’s touch patiently knowing he’ll give you what you need. He’s here, you’re safe, he loves you, you’re his.

He must read this on your face because his voice slithers up at you, “That’s right baby, you’re mine,” 

Bucky stares proudly at you a moment before diving in and sucking on your clit harshly while tenderly pushing two metal fingers into your cunt. You cry out at the mercy of his touch and love, your body shakes as it holds itself back for him. 

“Come for me doll,” Bucky mumbles around your clit, “Come on my metal fingers and my tongue.” 

Your vision crystallizes into white and you all but yank Bucky’s hair out as your body tips and  _falls_  into climax.Bucky watches in wonder and pride and awe and love as you shatter yet again for him, your lips keep forming words but you have no air to spare to speak them. 

 _Bucky-Bucky-Bucky,_ is the name on your lips as the pleasure devastates you. Violent ripples of electric white zinging through your body and heart. 

He doesn’t think when he pulls back and gives your sensitive wet pussy a good slap. It sends a strange delicious second wave of euphoria through you, making you quake at the wonderfully forced after shock. 

“Did so well, came so prettily for me baby doll, you’re  _so good_ , so good for me.” Bucky hushes passionately as he scoots up and scatters proud kisses across your cheekbones and bridge of your nose, down to each corner of your mouth and along your jaw. Anywhere he could reach, anywhere that looked good, which was everywhere. 

You come down from your high, just a little, your mind a complete happy blank. His voice and kisses the only anchor back to earth, to reality.

“Color baby, what’s your color?” Bucky checks in as he continues pecking, having moved to the long column of your throat now with his hands on either side of your head. 

It takes you a second (or ten) to gather yourself enough to answer your Bucky as he waits patiently, “ _Green_.” 

He smiles and finally seals his lips to yours. You’re a little uncoordinated against the happy press of his mouth, but its a blissful intimate exchange all the same. 

“God I love you,” Bucky declares when you break apart before leaning over to –

_Bucky’s leaning away why is he leaning away don’t go come back don’t leave!_

“Hey sweetheart I’m not goin’ nowhere, just stripin’ down for ya and lookin’ for a condom is all,” Bucky assures as he spots the rising panic in your eyes. 

You shake your head when you digest his words. 

“Ah baby we need a condom, m’not ready to start a family yet,”

“Bucky–,” Your already chaotic brain scatters into a rose colored fantasy when the words  _family_ and  _yet_ leaves Bucky’s mouth; three kids with hair like yours and eyes like his scampering around a breakfast table as Bucky leans in to kiss you good morning. 

“Dollface? You with me still? Where are the condoms sugar?” He asks after successfully removing his clothes. He’s ruined more pairs of boxers in under 24 hours than in his entire life, Jesus. 

You shake your head again trying to remember what you were going to say, “I’m on the pill,” You eventually slur. 

Bucky’s eyebrows quirk in confusion before realization dawns on his face, “I fuckin’  _love_ the twenty-first century.”

“Don’t make me jealous,” You manage to huff dazedly, smiling big and bright and dumb up at your Bucky. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it darlin’,” He answers sweetly, pecking your cheek before stroking himself firmly twice and lining up to your entrance. 

“Please Bucky,” You whimper as you hold eye contact with him, running your fingers through his hair. 

“It’s yours baby, I’m yours,” Bucky murmurs reassuringly as he slowly sinks into you not breaking his gaze away from yours. 

Both your mouths fall open in shared relief and pleasure. Your velvet walls work to suck him, relaxing and opening up for him like a flower blooming in the sunlight. Once he’s buried to the hilt he stills, letting you adjust to his girth and length. He’s big and it’s been awhile. 

You bite your bottom lip as breath shudders from your throat, your breath billowing across his own parted lips. He brings his forehead to rest against yours before pulling out all the way and pushing back in just as slowly as the first time. You moan in harmony at the exquisite drag between your bodies, skin on skin, warmth on warmth. 

“Christ you’re tight angel, fuck you feel so good,” He groans as he starts up a rhythm, a slow pace, a  _deep_ pace that grinds your pelvis’ together everytime they meet. Hips kissing just so before pulling away. 

It sets you on fucking fire. 

You want more and faster and harder, but you also want whatever Bucky gives you, you want this slow intimate drag and grind. You want it all. You want Bucky. 

Bucky is working like hell to keep the pace he’s at, wanting –  _needing_ – to feel all of you this way. He wants to learn every inch of you inside and out, with you spread out like a feast before him willing, pliant, and loving. Bucky’s making love to you and you honestly couldn’t ask for something more pure, more good. 

You both pour your souls into the other, freely exchanging your love. The universe doesn’t blush this time but watches in awe. Stars peek in from outside through the window to witness the two lovers as well, whispering to the moon excitedly. 

Bucky still refuses to speed up but increases the pressure and power behind his push, circling his hips more and experimenting with different angles.

He wants to lift your legs over his shoulders to try and reach deeper in you, but he doesn’t want to move away from you, if only for a moment. Bucky gazes lovingly down at you, his eyes meeting yours with such sureness and strength. He nuzzles your noses together and smiles against your lips when he feels you tug tenderly at the hair at the back of his neck. 

He knows he’s not going to last much longer, and from the looks of it neither are you. You hook your legs over and around his hips, hauling him harder into you everytime he pushes in. His pace is still slow and long and deep as he brings his flesh hand (his metal one still has your slick on it) to wrap around your neck again. 

You gasp as his fingers tighten. Your exhale becomes his inhale as you both work your hips together. 

“Come with me baby, come on my cock,” 

His words wrench your orgasm from you like you never had control of it to begin with. But it feels right because it’s his, your pleasure, your pain, your everything is his. Instead of crying out and convulsing violently like you did during your first orgasm, both of your climaxes wash over you like a wave, lulling soft and sweet but  _powerful._ It robs both of you of your ability to speak and breathe as you cry soundlessly into each other’s mouths, the pleasure thick and intense pulsing through your veins. Bucky feels your blood pump in your neck and your slightly strained intake of breath under his hand and whites out, emptying his soul into you along with his come. 

“ _Mine_ ,” You whisper at him when you see his eyes close, feel his forehead press heavier against yours, and his hand around your neck tighten a hair. 

Bucky shivers and stills against you when he’s poured everything he has into you and the euphoria transitions into a constant stream line of post-orgasmic bliss.  

“ _Yours,”_ Bucky responds after a moment of trying to find his voice. 

The universe marvels at the lovers tangled on the bed and wonders how much more beautiful this love will get, because this is just _the beginning_. The night sky lights up with titillation as the stars glitter and the moon glows a bit brighter as everything is right in this place, this time, this moment. 

Time unpauses but smiles back at them as it drifts regretfully on, like it always must. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed that! I’ll see you all in Hell :) xx


	3. Stardust and Heartstrings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once a soul is given, it's really quite hard to steal it back.

_Part 3_

 

* * *

 

 

**A Year Later**

Bucky and you are officially masters at communication now, leaving no room for splintered hearts or shattered hopes in the name of misunderstanding. Of course you both continue to make mistakes and grow and learn and cherish each other every day, but nothing as silly as miscommunication will disturb the sacred pond you two have bathed in. 

Continuing to live together was a risky choice (just because you hadn’t known each other technically for that long) but it felt right and it turned out to be the best decision you both could have made. You would have genuinely missed Bucky if he didn’t live with you, which sounds needy to your ears but when you told Bucky, albeit reluctantly and with much prompting, he beamed so wide a canoe could have fit in his mouth and he hugged you for five minutes straight. 

And all you really wanted to do in life was get Bucky to smile, so. 

You both decided that moving into town was the best option, even though the lake house would forever be your guys’ special place and cherished and visited often, you had a new job and Bucky decided to once again follow Steve into battle by being an Avenger. So, with both of your new incomes and jobs, you could afford just about any place you wanted (thanks to Stark’s multiple and overly generous bonuses). The two of you ended up deciding on a penthouse in Brooklyn, with Steve living in the same building just a few floors below.  

You accepted awhile ago that Bucky and Steve were a packaged deal, one certainly did not come without the other. But you didn’t mind very much, Steve had become a brother to you and you were increasingly concerned about finding him someone to call his own. Nat and you teamed up setting him up with different girls. It had obviously done wonders for Bucky to find love (if you do say so yourself). 

At the moment you’re in the kitchen slapping together a lazy dinner of pasta and heating up some leftover handmade beef patties from an Avengers barbecue last weekend. As you stir the still stiff angel hair spaghetti in the boiling water of the pot, you think about how weird being apart of the official Avengers family is. How strange it is being constantly surrounded and involved with super humans and saving the world shit. I mean yes you are practically  _related_ to Sam, but he never shared information about ops and missions with you the way Bucky does. It was obviously to keep you safe, because the less you know the less likely you’ll be made a target, but you enjoy hearing about hero work from Bucky.  

Anytime there’s a mission that will take longer than a few days Bucky leaves you with the Bucky’s Away On a Mission Essentials:

1\. Fifteen different cell numbers (one is his untraceable cell, one is for Steve’s untraceable cell in case Bucky loses and or accidentally destroys it, obviously Sam’s personal and untraceable in case  _Steve’s_ phone is somehow broken or destroyed, you’re pretty sure you also have Pepper’s personal cell, Maria Hill’s personal and untraceable, Tony’s cell, Nat’s untraceable, I mean you kinda stopped reading the list after that)

2\. A ridiculously over stocked fridge because apparently you going to the market when he isn’t there is quote “ _unnecessary_ ” (You eventually got him to explain that its not because he doesn’t think you can do it, obviously you can, but when he’s away he likes knowing that in some little way he’s still  _caring_ for you,  _providing_ for you,  _feeding_ you. The sex you had that night was earth shattering.) 

3\. A brand new extra soft and fuzzy blanket because ‘ _Baby, it’s for those darlin’ lil blanket nests you like to make in front of the fireplace right below the TV in our room!_ ’ (he buys you a new one each time he goes away, you’re working on trying to get him to stop because your linen closet can’t close all the way anymore, it just gapes open in the hallway like a beer-bellied grandpa who has removed his belt)

4\. A box of overly expensive “designer chocolates” as Bucky likes to call them (he gets you a set of different flavors each time, and the amount chocolates in the box is the expected amount of days he’ll be gone ‘ _So you can have a treat each night and think of me sugar”)_

5\. A hand written love letter (” _It’s what all the guys used to when we were waitin’ in the trenches back in ‘43, and I never had no one I really wanted to write to…except maybe Stevie but everyone wudda taken it wrong. But I have you now sweetheart, and I am gonna write to ya! May Mary n’ Joseph bless it!”)_

6\. Lastly (and your personal favorite), the promise of mind blowing reunion sex when he gets home

Bucky is away on a mission at the moment –  _fuck_ your pasta’s burning – and you are looking forward to seeing what flavor the chocolate will be tonight. Including today, there’s only one other chocolate left, meaning he’ll be home tomorrow. The thought of him being in front of you again, breathing, touchable, alive and smiling that private,  _proud_ ,  _awed_ smile he reserves just for you, makes your heart pick up speed and try to blast out of your chest like a rocket. 

You snap off the flame on the stove and stir the pot of boiling pasta again, smiling stupidly at the limp steaming noddles below you and use the non-stiring hand to gently press on your neck where a fading hickey lay proudly. A familiar addictive sensation rolls through the sensitive skin under your fingers and you shiver, almost smacking the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot. His presence on your body is fading but he’d be here in no less than 36 hours to reclaim you. You give a profound hum of pleasure at the thought of the sex you’ll have when he comes back as you dazedly put on oven mits, and carefully carry the hot pot over to the huge kitchen sink. You grunt as you position it over the metal pasta drainer, and pour the hot contents out. 

Your phone rings in your back pocket as you’re still transferring the boiling pasta out of the pot, so you ignore it. 

Your phone rings again once you’ve emptied the pot and place it with a huff back on the stove to cool. 

Your phone rings a total of fifteen times. 

It’s not till you have completely prepared the pasta with sauce, herbs, and mixed the torn up leftover burger patties in, that you check the screen to see each of your emergency numbers had tried to reach you. A text message from Steve freezes your heart solid.

**20:46pm**

Captain Spangles **:** _Y/n please call back, it’s about Bucky._

 

* * *

 

It’s pouring rain outside as you sit in a window-walled conference room at Stark Tower, surrounded by concerned looking Avengers. Steve on your left side and Sam sitting on the other. You’re too numb to register their hands rubbing your shoulders and too deaf to hear their soft cooing words of comfort. 

Natasha snaps clean in half after watching you sit in a bubble of untouchable silence, mute and void, for an hour. With a frustrated huff she slams her fists on the expensive looking table (you jump at this but continue to stare blankly –  _unaffected_ – ahead of you) and rises with a grunt,

“I  _had_ it! Barnes didn’t have to cover me like that, the fucking  _idiot_! I can cover my own ass! Why did he have to go and do something so stupid and reckless and unprofessional? I. HAD. IT.”  She starts off yelling and then ends up screaming at no one in particular. Maybe at Bucky who wasn’t currently present to hear her. 

In all of your experiences with Natasha Romanoff, not once had you ever seen her lose her cool like this. Apparently no one in the room had either as they stared at her wide eyed, sad, and slightly scared. 

“Nat,” Steve says in his trademark dad voice, all comfort and safety and hopelessly trying to take away all your pain. 

“Don’t ‘Nat’ me Steve! That  _fucking moron!_ Если бы он просто держал металлическую вооруженную задницу, где я сказал ему, чтобы сохранить его, он бы не хватает и вполне возможно мертвым в гребаной момент!” Natasha full on rants in harsh, bitter sounding Russian, waving her hands around her head and fisting them whenever her voice rose higher. 

Silent tears track even heavier down your face because Bucky had taught you Russian. Yes you were still learning, but you got the gist of what Natasha said. 

The words  _missing_ and  _possibly_ and  _dead_ were all you needed to hear. 

 

* * *

 

**A Week Later**

You took off work. Holing yourself up in your penthouse and not eating as much as you should became your only achievable tasks. The apartment wasn’t overly spacious but it felt so damn empty and quiet without Bucky there to share it with. 

You still haven’t eaten the last chocolate. 

* * *

 

**Two Weeks Later**

Steve decided he’s moving in with you; ‘ _Just until Buck gets back’._ You didn’t really get an opinion in the matter but you honestly didn’t care. Your will to care and be present in your life faded each day, hour, minute, and second Bucky remained only a faded grey ghost in your dreams. 

You weren’t brave enough to face the possibility that James Barnes was dead, for  _real_ this time. You just don’t have it in you,  _don’t have the strength_. The fact that you might never acquire that strength scares you too but the numbness usually returns at that point so you go on living. Or surviving, if you want to get technical. 

* * *

 

**Three Weeks Later**

It’s the middle of the night and Steve sits at Bucky and your kitchen island, elbows on the counter, shoulders hunched, listening to you cry in your sleep like he does most nights. He stares at the box of chocolates Bucky got you sitting battered and dented on a shelf above the toaster and blender. Earlier Steve caught you throwing it in the garbage with angry unintelligible accusatory screams, kicking at the trash can and crying so hard you could barely breathe. He had to wrap his arms around your heaving body and hush at you like a wild horse until the fury left your system and you crumpled like burning tissue paper in his arms. 

When he let you go, you dove back for the trash can. Steve had lunged for you thinking you were going to go raging again and maybe hurt yourself, but instead you frantically dug through the trash for the chocolate box.  _Horrible, awful_ sounding noises leaked from your lips and stole the grace from your eyes as you finally pulled it out. Shaking like a leaf about to fall from its branch you checked to make sure the one chocolate was still in there, and then smashed the box against your chest and cradled it like it was a sick child.

The box sits there sad and lonely now, the sympathetic stars providing the only light that crawls weakly through the windows. There is no moon tonight. 

Steve feels his lip quiver, his eyes burn with fast tears, and he lowers his face slowly into his hands. The hands that failed him. _Again_. The hands that betrayed him.  _Again_. The hands that couldn’t hold on to the one thing in this life that he can truly call home.  _Again._

The constellations weep tears of stardust for Steve Rogers as he surrenders to the insufferable agony of losing Bucky Barnes.

_Again._

 

* * *

 

**A Month Later**

It’s raining again. It always seems to be raining. The TV is on in your bedroom as you lay unseeing and unmoving and uncaring in your nest of blankets. Every single blanket Bucky has bought you is currently being used. It’s the only place you find you can manage to rest. Well, rest is a polite way of saying it. It’s more like how Bucky was when he was first living with you at the lake house; you  _shut down_ but never slept. With a watery broken up gasp (you always seem to be crying or leaking water in some way) you slowly begin to move your hand.

Your fingertips graze unfeelingly against your bare unmarked naked neck. The muscle in your chest that used to be your heart shutters dully against the normal wave of pain at the reminder of Bucky’s absence. Cautiously, almost getting the feeling that you were doing something like defacing the Star of David or drawing a mustache on a Nailed Jesus –  _defiling something sacred and beautiful_  – you gently wrap your fingers around your neck. 

Immediately your gut fills with acid and the taste in your mouth sours. 

It’s all wrong. 

Your fingers are too short, not long enough. They’re not thick and strong and calloused and  _sure_. You whip your hand back like it had been burned and tuck it between your curled up thighs. Closing your eyes a silent sob heaves your chest and you smash your face into Bucky’s pillow you brought down from the bed. His scent long since left it but you dab what’s left of his aftershave on it each week. You burrow further down into the blanket nest and even with all the blankets, they still couldn’t  _touch_ the feeling of absolute security and safety and  _home_ Bucky’s body gives you… _gave you_.

 

* * *

 

**Five Weeks Later**

Sam has been trying for the better part of three hours to convince you to move out of the apartment. 

“I can’t believe you are even  _suggesting_ that.” You say so coldly, so  _nastily_  your whole body shakes with rage as you speak. 

Sam sees the hot steel edged betrayal in your eyes and sighs helplessly as he roughly rubs his hands over his face. 

“Y/n you need to start moving on,” He murmured as his hands dropped from his face, “You need to start mourning–,”

The slap you delivered on Sam’s cheek was so forceful it snapped his entire head sideways. 

He leaves his face where you left it and takes a deep breath before facing you again. He doesn’t look hurt or mad, just  _exhausted_. 

“James is  _not…dead_.” You hiss through bared teeth, barely able to say the word, and burn guilty holes through Sam’s tired eyes with your gaze. “How dare you come into Bucky and my  _home_ after barely a  _month_ and  _demand_ I start – start – start – st–,” 

You begin to hyperventilate. Sam’s eyes water and his face crumples as he watches you breaking before him in a way he’s never seen before. 

“Deep breaths Y/n, deep breaths,” Sam hushes gently, tapping into his personal experience on how to pull through panic attacks, the likes of which you have become unfairly familiar with this past month. 

Sam and you are focusing so much on equalizing your breathing that you don’t hear your phone ringing. 

You get called by fourteen different emergency numbers. 

By the time you check your phone, Sam has left (you kicked him out) in defeat, and you’re alone in your nest of blankets with Bucky’s after shave scented pillow comforting your tear stained cheek. 

**20:46pm**

Unknown Number -  _I’m coming home to you._

 

* * *

 

**Six Weeks Later**

An entire week has gone by since you got the text from Bucky. It was Bucky. And nobody and nothing was going to convince you otherwise. The number was untraceable when the team tried to track it, but it didn’t matter to you.

_Your Bucky is coming home to you._

You went back to work, you cleaned your apartment, you actually went grocery shopping instead of ordering take out like you have been for the past month and a half. Most importantly though, you make an effort to be in the sun every day because the same ultra violet sunrays that penetrate your skin, touch(ed) Bucky somewhere in the world too. You felt connected to him for the first time in a long time.

_Your Bucky is coming home to you._

You did all the laundry, including the blankets in the nest (although you put them right back the second they were out of the dryer, and you may or may not have lounged in them for an hour or two as they were still warm), you even did Bucky’s dirty clothes, not having been able to stomach going  _near_ his hamperbefore. But you can stand it now because:

_Your Bucky is coming home to you._

Steve still is living with you even though you’re more or less yourself again, but you can tell he stays more for his sanity than yours. But you’re okay with that, Steve’s a person who’s not meant to go through life alone. Neither are you quite frankly. 

The last chocolate is thrown out (mostly because it had gone bad) but you keep the box and display it proudly in the center of the kitchen island. 

 _Your Bucky is coming home to you._  

 

* * *

 

**Seven Weeks Later**

Your faith in Bucky hasn’t faltered. It won’t ever.

It’s the middle of the night and you’re sitting at the kitchen island listening to Steve cry in his sleep. You stare at the chocolate box in front of you and remember the warmth of the sun caressing your face this afternoon. 

There is a full moon tonight and its milky light pours smoothly through the kitchen windows to cast a spotlight on you for celestial eyes to observe. The constellations twinkle to life and dance at the sight of you before whispering into each other’s ears, passing a precious message of hope around the dome of the sky to the stars watching over James Barnes. With the news of love the stars murmur happily to James in his sleep, bestowing him dreams of y/c hair, y/c eyes, the touch of y/c skin… 

_You’re going home to her._

 

* * *

 

**Two Months Later**

There’s a knock on your door. 

You were right in the middle of pouring yourself a cup of tea, 

“Just a minute!” 

Quickly you rip the tea bag packet open and plop it sloppily into your mug, picking up the steaming cup and dipping the bag repeatedly up and down into the water as you head to the door. 

You were expecting Sam over. You both hadn’t talked since the whole slapping scenario and you wanted to apologize for being so cruel to him. When you opened the door though something in your chest  _bloomed_ , came back to life from a long cold winter of hibernation. A wholesome resurrection in glimmering exultance.

The crash of your mug shattering on the floor and splattering scalding tea on your ankles did nothing to pull your gaze away from the jagged unpolished grey granite of James Barnes eyes. 

Your world had returned. 

He stood there looking like a stranger in your doorway, holding himself sitffly like he expected to get hit or shot or something equally painful. 

“Bucky?” You whisper as you reach out for him but he recoils so harshly from your hand it makes you jump back too. 

 _Who the hell is Bucky_ , James thinks bitterly as he’s reminded of the time years ago when Steve, the man on the bridge, said his name like you just did. 

James hides under his long unwashed hair and ungroomed stubble, guarding his eyes behind his swath of coal lashes and hunching into himself like he was  _ashamed_. 

“Will you come in?” You eventually ask seeing as physical contact and apparently verbal communication is a dead no at the moment. 

Your skin, your heart, your very soul aches with the absolute need to touch him. Just to  _touch him_ , at least once. To know for sure that he’s actually here, that he’s alive and in your doorway. But you prioritize his needs above yours at the moment, knowing he’s gone through way more than you did. 

When he doesn’t do anything more than blink and twitch one shoulder weirdly in response, which you take as an unsure shrug, you clear your throat and walk back into the apartment. You leave the door open for him and head determinedly into the kitchen, completely forgetting the mess of ceramic shards and cooling tea in the foyer. 

For some reason you go straight for the chocolate box on the island, picking it up with suddenly shaking hands and hugging it to your chest in replacement of the actual man you need to hold. You don’t hear him follow you in but know he’s behind you all the same. Your Bucky sixth sense still in-tune and acute as ever even after all this time. 

There’s a few moments of tense silence before you turn around to face him, your eyes so wet and already so sore that you panic when the visage of James standing before you blurs. You blink hard multiple times, not able to handle not seeing him under the salt water of your tears. If you couldn’t touch him you sure as hell weren’t taking your eyes off him. 

When your eyes blink clear you realize you’re breathing pretty hard and your practically destroying the box in your arms because you’re holding it so tight. James’ eyes snap straight to the box. He looks almost confused for a moment, before gears turn in his brain and his eyes widen as they drag up to meet yours. 

His mouth opens in a silent gasp at your expression and for a moment  _Bucky_ is back. You stand there unexplainably cold, shaking, and crying, clutching a stupid cardboard chocolate box like your life depends on it. 

James’ heart cries for you and he instincually reaches out to you but stops himself, snapping back like a whip and pulling into himself almost in a scolding manner. At this second recoil –  _refusal to touch, to meet, to connect_  – your eyes fill so heavily he blurs in front of you again and the  _saddest_ noise escapes from your shaking wet-with-tears lips. 

The sound depicts how profoundly  _alone_ you feel even with James standing right in front of you, that it breaks the universe’s heart. The world shudders with protective sympathy around you. 

James winces at the noise and a few beats pass before his hands come up to cover his face and trap his head down and hidden from you. His hands look like they’re the claws of someone else holding James hostage, keeping him from not only you, but from himself. 

“Please,” You sob so softly, so gently, so  _pleadingly_ , that the universe preserves its freshly broken heart by turning away from the scene entirely. 

James winces again but still does not move. 

He shouldn’t be here. How  _dare_ he come back? How  _dare_ he put you through this? He should have never told you he was coming, he should have just stayed away and let you live on without him: unburdened. How selfish of him to disappear (even though it was for survival) and then come back expecting you to forgive him, welcome him, god for you to  _still love him_? 

“James  _please_ ,” You try again hoarsely as you stay where you are and try desperately to clear your eyes of the never ending salty spring trying continually to steal the image of your Bucky from you. 

James grunts as he feels a familiar sting behind his eyes and without any words, turns sharply on his heel and strides towards the door. He can’t handle this, he can’t handle hurting you this way. He’ll leave and never come back–

“Don’t you DARE.” The absolute fury in your voice chills him to his bone and stops him dead right before he steps out of the still open door. James hangs his head, hands having fell limp by his sides and surrenders to your anger. 

 _I deserve your wrath and hatred_ , James thinks twistedly,  _I’m finally getting what I deserve._

You stomp over to him and slam the door shut so hard the hinges rattle. The man before you doesn’t jump, or even twitch. When a couple beats of vibrating silence go by and James is still hiding his eyes from you by staring at your fuzzy sock covered feet –  _fuzzysocksfuzzyblanketscomfycouchwarmskindelicateankleOW_.

“Look at me you goddamned coward!” Your voice shatters in the cross fire of more fucking tears and your rage. 

James looks up at you, slowly, but he does eventually meet your gaze. The moment your eyes really, truly meet everything whites out like a thunder clap, powerful and final. And for the first time in two months you’re both home. You both stand there staring at each other, breathing hard under the stress of your emotions.

“I love you way too fucking much to let you run,” You begin again, strongly this time despite your voice still fighting you, “You  _will_ face this with me James and you  _will_ except the fact that I forgive you even though there’s nothing to forgive.” With a huff fueled by hysteria you shove the box into his hands, forcing him to catch it. “That box is all I had left of you. When your marks on my body faded, when the smell of you in our bed disappeared, when I ran out of aftershave to put on your pillow, that  _stupid_ ,  _fucking_ ,  _empty_ , chocolate box is all I had.” 

James just breaks. Lowering his head again, he puts the backs of his wrists against his forehead, box crumpled in his metal and flesh hands, and  _sobs_. 

Your heart splits clean in half and you take a leap of faith. You wrap your arms as much and as tightly as you can around James’ ridiculously broad shoulders. When he fights you, tying to break free, you hold onto him even tighter knowing that if he really wanted you to not touch him he could easily remove you. This gives you confidence as you gently wrench the poor chocolate box out of his grip, chuck it to the floor, and guide his face to tuck safely in the welcoming alcove of your neck. 

It’s your favorite spot to go on him, a spot you’re aching to go now but ignore steadfastly, so you hope it makes him feel better. You thought James was done breaking down (hence the sobbing) but he  _cracks_ and  _snaps_ again by clinging to you. Hugging you back so hard you almost faint from him squeezing so fiercely. You don’t say a word of protest, in fact you feel the knot in your gut that hasn’t released in two months slowly and purposefully undue itself. Both of your emotions slush in violent waves back and forth between the red beaches of your hearts, feelings transcending skin, bone, matter, and atoms, as your chests press flush to each other. 

“Mine,” You whisper to him as you cautiously card your fingers through his knotted hair, still trying to convince your skeptical heart that yes! This is our Bucky, its him and he’s here and he’s in pain. 

James only cries harder, clings to you even tighter, before mumbling wetly against the skin of your neck, “ _Yours_.”  

 

* * *

 

It takes you and Bucky almost two hours to be comfortable enough to loosen your death grips on each other. You were both scared that you’d somehow disappear and your happinesses would vanish. This mistrust in the fortune the stars and fate have worked so hard to gift you, creates this primal zing in the atmosphere. It manifests an energy into the air that neither of you understand quite yet, but somehow know will eventually consume you both by the end of the night. 

It’s about late afternoon when James and you make your way into the bathroom, no verbal communication needed as you start running water for the tub. A heavy sense of deja vu hits you like a literal slap in the face as you watch James climb in and sit stiffly in the bathtub, a towel and change of clean clothes for him (this time it’s his stuff and not your brother’s) in your hands, and cleaning supplies by the edge of the tub. 

It’s like the first night you two really connected all that time ago at the lake house. Originally you were going to join James in the bath, but for some reason you had this strange feeling of sacrilege about this, and you weren’t going to defile something that felt so sacred by changing it. Instead of taking off your clothes you leave them on, ignoring James’ questioning looks when you kneel down outside of the tub, and put your hair in a messy bun. You roll your sleeves up and pour some shampoo in your palm,

“Lay back and get your hair wet for me,” You ask gently, not so much command in your voice like you had to use the first time. 

James stares at you for a second before recognition and memory pull a curtain of potent emotion over the canvas of his face, and his red-rimmed eyes water again. 

He knows. 

James wets his hair, keeping eye contact with you the whole time. The staring doesn’t bother you like it used to, in fact you hope he never takes his eyes off you again.

You lather the shampoo in your hands before carding your fingers even and wide over Bucky’s wet scalp. And just like the first time, James’ eyes flutter close and all the air deflates from him. As you work and massage the lather in his hair, his head pushes up into your tender palms like a purring cat. 

You smile fondly, feeling overwhelmed with nostalgia, and continue your work. Once you get to the conditioner you leave it in his hair to be absorbed while you rub soap into the wet wash cloth to begin scrubbing James clean. 

Everything is the same as that first night, except James isn’t wearing your brother’s borrowed swimtrunks this time. He’s full nude. 

James is more relaxed but still stiff as a board and sitting up right in the tub. With two gentle coaxing hands on his shoulders you push him back and invite him to rest his head on the thick porcelain lip of the tub. You quickly hop up to grab a hand towel, roll it up thoughtfully, and place it under his neck so it doesn’t cramp. James – or Bucky? Is that Bucky you see in his eyes now? – stares at you with the beginnings of that private,  _proud, awed_  smile he use to give you. It’s not nearly all there but it touches those rough eyes of his, melting the grey granite into something malleable. 

Something to work with. 

You smile back with equal caution but just as genuinly, acknowledging the fact that you both are learning to not necessarily trust each other, but trust  _yourselves_ around each other again. His shoulders and arms is where you scrub with the cloth first, James tenses when you start working the lathered towel under the water down near his hips though. You both slowly petrify to a stop, all movement including breathing ceasing completely. 

In the first moment of clarity –  _of absolute sureness_  – you’ve had in two months, you know what you have to do to make both of you right again. 

You wait till James returns your meaningful gaze as his eyes wearily eye your hand still against his navel. At your silence he looks up and you patiently hold his gazes to yours, allowing him to  _see_ you. His grey granite eyes are ablaze in flame and molten fire, burning  _with_ you,  _in_ you,  _through_ you,  _for_ you.

With a tender determination you let go of the washcloth and it floats to the surface. You hear James inhale. You both don’t shy away from the intensity that only comes with really looking someone in the eye, braving this moment of reconnection together. 

Slowly you move your hand down to rest softly on his nearest hip and stroke the bone cresting there, allowing him time to adjust to your physical presence there. The corners of his lips pull up and then fall back down in a weird twitchy smile that you know means, go on. 

Even now, when you’re taking care of Bucky you still wait for him to tell you what to do. You  _still_ wait for his word, his  _permission_. Your head reels at the idea of finally going back into that headspace you’ve not been to in months, but you clear your head and focus on Ja– _Bucky_. You let out a shuddering breath and slide your fingers to curl loosely around his soft cock. The world around you thickens and prickles at your skins.

You knew if this were to happen two months ago Bucky would have been hard just being naked in your presence, but agony has happened to you both and if you had a dick it would be cautious to accept something so sweet as the fingers of the person you love slowly stroking you for the first time in months.  

After a few minutes and you notice he’s still strung tight with nerves and trying too hard to enjoy himself. You bring your free palm up from its resting place on the lip of the tub and cup it fondly to his stubbled cheek. 

“It’s just me baby,” You remind him in practically a whisper, “Please let me be part of you again?” Comes your murmur through the steam and warmth of the bathroom. Asking for his permission to be  _let in again_.

Bucky’s burning irises shimmer around quickly expanding pupils, black swallowing the molten silver granite almost entirely. 

“That’s it Buck,” You hush as the chords in his neck release and the full weight of his cheek surrenders to the invitation of your offered palm. And like a switch, his cock fills in your hand like liquid iron sheathed in velvet. 

He doesn’t make any of his usual noises as you ease him into a pace, but you didn’t expect him too. You start out slow and easy, the standard up and down, nothing fancy yet. Bucky fights the urge to look away from you, to hide. You fight the same urge as you cradle him with your eyes and keep the steady pace of your hand coaxing even more blood into his now fully hard cock. 

“I think we’re doing great so far?” You offer in the hopes of adding some lightness, a minor break in the intensity of everything. 

Bucky recognizes your effort and this time when he smiles at you it lasts a little longer. You take this opportunity to twist your fingers  _just right_ around the head on the up stroke and you finally earn yourself Bucky’s first noise. It’s not loud or particularly confident, but the soft groan is pure and genuine. The pleasure your hand delivered him not only sparked the noise in his throat, but rolls through his facial features as well. 

His eyebrows pull together gently and lift in the center just a hair, his eyes shut close and his chin tips his head back a bit with the sensation of the new but familiar feeling of ecstasy buzzing alive and wild in his veins again. The sharp steel-edge of his jaw is blurred by his ungroomed stubble, but the line of his exposed thick neck slightly damp from the steam of the room, with veins raised and pumping blood away from his head and down into your hand makes you bite your lip and hold back an answering moan of your own. 

Out of purly selfish reasons you do the same twist again, knowing that’s one of Bucky’s major ticks, simply starving for  _more_. More of Bucky, more of anything he’ll give you. You’re rewarded once again with a more sure sounding groan, the noise groveling out of his throat and falling an octave lower than the first. He surprises you by hissing as you circle and rub the pad of your thumb right against the sensitive flat plane of his frenulum, sucking air through his clenched teeth as his hips jerk up. The water licks up the sides of the tub at the disturbance. 

That was another one of his hot spots.

“Easy baby, easy,” You hum as you increase your pace tightening your fist around him on the stroke down, to give the illusion of the tightness of your pussy. “There you go let yourself feel it, feel  _me_ again.” You prompt lowly, a hunger blooming hotly in your voice as he opens his eyes and looks at you over the bridge of his nose, neck still stretched long. 

You don’t tease him as he starts bucking his hips to synchronize with the tempo of your hand, but allow him full control to chase after his orgasm. As his groans grow more sure with each healthy thrust of his hips into your hand, you’re hesitant to tell him he can come. And not because you don’t want him to, but because that’s never been your role in bed; to give permission and or guide him when to come. It always had been Bucky’s. You falter a little kneeling by the tub,

_Do I say come? Do I tell him when? How do I tell him? Does he want to be told?_

Bucky easily picks up on your rising panic no matter how hard you attempt to hide it. For some reason it makes him grin, the first genuinely happy unchecked expression he’s made in months. He watches you furrow your brows so cutely when you catch his smile, and before you can even think to ask why he’s making it (so you can do whatever it is that earned you it in the first place), Bucky sits up. Water parts off his clenched abs, the muscles glistening in the light of the bathroom and the sparkle of the water, and he wraps his wet warm large flesh hand around the front of your neck, fingers readjusting against your skin as his forehead comes to kiss your own.

It takes you by such surprise so much that your hand stops pumping his cock completely, and your breath leaves you in a rush. The exotic labored drag of your air leaving your throat with his hand on it literally sends you up so fast you almost faint. Of course there is a hesitance still sticking to your joy like a stubborn shadow in direct sunlight, but the trust and faith you have in Bucky is absolute. 

“I love you.” Is the first full sentence out of Bucky’s mouth since he walked in your door today. 

You want to cry and laugh and orgasm all at once. 

Bucky wraps his metal hand around your limp hand still circled loosely around his cock, and guides your movement on him. The alarming rate your brain is turning into goo worries you a little as he starts pumping your hand on his cock faster and faster. 

“I got you darlin’,” Bucky promises to the inch of air separating your lips even though he’s the one climbing closer and closer to the edge. “I love you and I’ll always come back to ya,”

Tears start falling from your cheeks as you tangle your free hand in a big fist of his still slick with conditioner wet heavy locks. You know he doesn’t only mean physically come back, but emotionally as well. Bucky came back to you, searched his way through himself and found you again. Found  _us_. His eyes are no longer cold grey granite but endless blue galaxies with streams of warm mercury churning through them.  

“Sometimes I just need a lil coaxin’,” He continues in a relieved huff because he’s back and he’s home and your hand is around his cock. 

You give a watery chuckle at his words, “I fucking missed you Buck, and if you don’t fuck me every which way till next Sunday I’m going to kill you.” 

Bucky grunts, tenses, then  _spills_ into your hands as he climaxes to the vision of you naked and laid out underneath him taking his cock as he pounds his soul back into you. He moans hotly into your mouth as your lips brush together, his wide torso curling sweetly around your joined hands, metal on flesh, around his spurting cock. 

A gravelly ‘ _fuck’_  oozes out of his lazy euphoria slackened lips, the sound causing a mass of burning heat to pour hot and heavy into your core. The tone of his voice resignating with you so profoundly goosebumps rise all over your body.

When he pulls away some you shiver at the loss of his direct warmth and at the look he’s giving you. His flesh hand still remains on your neck but his fingers have loosened. Bucky watches his hand as he strokes and pets your bare neck, revering it like it’s a sacred canvas he’s dying to paint on. 

Your eyes connect again, surrendering to the irrevocable pull between you two. Everything quiets and the myriad pieces of the universe gather. 

Both of your hearts call to each other with silent cries before the space between you collapses and your souls yank the line connecting them hard. The merciful press of Bucky’s lips against your own is  _freedom_. The kiss is still and chaste at first, allowing yourselves a moment to savor the feeling of your lips simply pressing against each other, before you begin to move with urgency. Your lips worship each other with yielding passion and undying respect. 

It’s the first real kiss –  _meaningful_ , full of life and truth – of the evening and it by far won’t be the last. In fact your heart gallops lamely in your chest at the realization that its only going to get more powerful and deep from here. 

Bucky slides his hand up your throat and cups the back of your neck, guiding you gently to rediscover his mouth as he rediscovers yours. Tongues delve into hot wet mouths and burning hands start roaming over bodies and before you know it, you’re half way into the tub. 

“Hold on baby,” Bucky murmurs as he pulls back from you with an admirable amount of effort, leaving you a lot colder than is probably normal, and leans back to wash the conditioner out of his hair. You’ve never seen Bucky move so fast in your entire life. 

When he’s done he practically leaps out of the tub, snags the towel off the counter, and dries himself off. He almost  _blurs_ he’s moving so fast. His eyes snap up to you still kneeling a bit shell shocked by the tub, and he strides over. He lifts you up to stand with his hands under your armpits like a child, steps in so close his nose almost brushes your forehead, and takes the towel to gently pat your wet hands and arms dry too. 

You feel that same sacred small feeling glowing refreshed and serenely in your chest, the world glowing a little more around you as Bucky takes care of you. 

“There you go babygirl,” Bucky hushes as he watches with a triumphant  _soft_ smile as he takes you up slow and steady. You look up with eyes open and fuzzy with relief and wonder, “I’m here, I’m back, and you’re mine darlin’,” 

You both lean in at the same time. The towel drops forgotten to the tile below you as you crumble into each other’s arms, surrendering into an embrace that is so resilient its almost its own energy source. Bucky snakes his arms around you as you lift your legs to wrap around his thick, muscled waist. He begins to walk out of the bathroom, final destination set for the bedroom. 

One minute you two are making out and the next –

“Shit!” Bucky exclaims as his heel slips on the slippery-with-steam smooth tile floor of the bathroom, and sends you both flying backwards. Bucky lands on his back while you use his beefy chest as a pillow (but not before cushioning the back of Bucky’s head with your hands so it doesn’t crack against the tile) when you both smack against the floor. A couple beats pass as you both catch eyes.

One minute you two are quiet and the next –

An uproarious laughter positively  _rips_ through the silence and bangs carelessly on the echoey walls of the bathroom as you both cackle and snort on the ground. Your body pumps up and down on Bucky’s chest as it heaves with chuckles. Tears spring to your eyes as you both continue to laugh. Eventually you both calm down and the texture in the air changes and  _twists_ just so. 

You both spring up from the floor in glorious synchronization, and, holding hands, sprint ( _very_ carefully) like a couple of horny teenagers to your bedroom. Giggles color the air as you bound through the open bedroom door and throw yourselves onto the bed. The cool silk sheets caress your hot skins with chilled cool fingers as you lay each other down and begin to kiss again. Bucky finds his place above you, solid hips cradled perfectly in the space between your dropped open legs. 

Your inhale becomes his exhale as you continue to devour each other through violent kisses that were more push and shove and  _teeth_ than anything else. Bucky begins moving his hips purposefully against you when you tug at his damp hair and whisper a ‘please’ past his lips. 

The sex you were about to have would be one of the most defining moments of your relationship. This is when he’s going to reclaim you,  _possess you_ body and soul once more. This is when he’s going to give himself to you, let you take all you can from him and then take even more. 

This is when your souls get to finally touch again after being locked away in cages of flesh and bone (and in Bucky’s case metal too), separated from their eternities and forced to drown in networks of blood and suffer in the shackles of matter, unable to transcend into that intangible  _more_. 

 “You want everything sweetheart?” Bucky murmurs against the pillows of your lips as his naked hips continue to rock into your clothed ones. 

You know what Bucky means. Your eyes glaze over as you sigh out in sparkling relief. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Bucky says with an invisible chuckle tagged to his words without actually laughing. Giving his eyes this luminescence and his voice a temporary lightness before you both slip into your roles. 

Bucky rears up from you and without any warning, takes the collar of your t-shirt in his hands and rips it clean in half down the front. 

“Oh  _fuck_ ,” You whisper at the unexpected roughness, your pussy absolutely  _drooling_  for him, as he takes the remains of your poor shirt and tosses them somewhere off the bed. He growls at your bra denying him the beauty of your chest, and move his hands quickly. 

“Daddy not my bra too!” 

You shock yourself still for a moment as Bucky freezes above you. The two of you meet eyes, bodies completely still, and then everything slides in place and  _clicks._

Bucky slowly slides his metal hand that’s warm from the bath and the heat of your skin, underneath your back to stop at the clasp of your bra between your lower shoulder blades. He keeps eye contact with you the entire time, hips still as he undoes your bra with a practiced flick. 

“You know Daddy would have just gotten you another one a  _better one_ , right Princess?” Bucky purrs like a lion rumbling to a lioness in heat as he carefully removes the bra from your arms and tosses it away too.

You nod as you stare up at him with wide trusting eyes, the love you have for him leaking out of every pore of your body like an overflowing cauldron. Bucky smiles softly at you, breaking his role for a second, before placing his flesh hand against your cheek and leaning down to kiss you fondly. He keeps kissing you as he uses both of his hands to work your pants and panties off. When Bucky tries to pull away so he can get your pants all the way down your legs, you give a gentle ‘nuh-uh’ and grab the sides of his face to keep his lips against yours. 

You feel him chuckle against your mouth, the sound vibrating your pressed together pillows giving the kiss a sensual zing as you kick your clothes off under him yourself. Once you’re fully naked Bucky pulls away and this time you let him. He stares down at you and drinks you in. Your kiss-bitten red lips, your softly huffing chest, your pliant body, those  _eyes_ of yours…

His gaze caresses you with such tenderness you  _swear_ you can feel his eyes touch your skin just as surely as his fingers can. 

Both Bucky and you realize the same thing at the same time. 

You’re too naked, something is undeniably missing and suddenly your heart speeds up. Your eyes frantically plead with Bucky’s and he immediately knows what to do. He drops a quick peck to your forehead before bounding off the bed and across the room to your drawers, shuffling sloppily through them. When he finds what he’s looking for he stops his hasty movements and turns to slowly face you. 

He doesn’t move from his place in front of the dresser that directly faces the bed. Bucky just holds his hands behind his back and watches you expectantly. The breath leaves your lungs in a rush at the silent command and you scramble quite ungracefully off the bed. Without having to be told with words, you lock gazes with Bucky and fall to your knees, kneecaps digging into the carpet. 

Bucky’s breath catches in his throat at the sublime vision of you on your knees, and his heart starts squeezing in his chest when you fall again, this time to all fours and start  _crawling towards him._ Despite you being a general klutz, when you crawl for your Bucky your body seems to adopt this grace that you only ever display for him. 

You slink across the carpet, the action not anything over the top or trying to hard to be sexy, no. Just the simple and beautiful act of you surrendering your pride to him and getting love and passion in return. When you reach him you push your head gently against one of his thick thighs and nuzzle your body to fit against the lean line of his strong leg. Once you sit, your legs folded neatly beside your butt, then settle your full weight against the side of his leg you wrap one hand around his bare ankle and press your cheek into the lower muscle of his thigh right above the side of his knee. 

Bucky’s breath shutters as he closes his eyes at the feel of you against him this way. He slowly brings one hand out from behind him, keeping the metal one back, and lovingly strokes your hair behind your ear before cupping his flesh hand against your exposed cheek. He pulls you closer to him with some gentle pressure. In this moment everything is as it should be. You are where you belong and Bucky is  _exactly_ where he belongs. 

The tenderness shared so freely between you two as the minutes pass steadily on is so rare. Not rare to you both, but rare to this world. Rare to this universe of violent sparky life. The stillness Bucky and you have achieved within your souls is a treasure many never once feel in their entire short lives. 

Usually you wait to be given permission to touch Bucky or nuzzle up to him like you did, but neither Bucky or you are planning to withhold yourselves from each other tonight. Not tonight. The two of you aren’t stupid, the peace you have found in each other needs to be cherished. 

Bucky indulges himself in another few minutes of shimmering silence, feeling your ribs breath gently against his calf and the warmth from your cheeks spread through his bare thigh and hand. He eventually opens his again and stares down at you flying at his feet. 

“Look at me Y/n,” Bucky hushes as he uses his flesh hand to guide your face up to him, letting your chin rest against his thigh once your eyes connect. 

A warmth blooms in your chests everytime your gazes lock. You thought it would go away eventually but it never has. That warmth is only intensified when he uses your name. 

“You want your collar?” Bucky asks the rhetorical question, knowing your answer is always and has always been –

“ _Yes Daddy_.” 

He finally brings his metal hand out from behind his back, a simple leather collar clasped gently between the metal digits. 

 _Collar_ means  _sacred_ and  _safety_ and  _mineyoursus._

Your eyes never leave the collar as he bends down slightly and you stretch your neck long. You lean your chin up and back to expose the line of your throat to him as he brings both of his hands to hold both ends of the collar out to show you. You had quite a few collars but this one was the first one Bucky bought you, it also happens to be your favorite. 

It’s simple smooth black leather on the outside with one thin metal loop at the front. Dangling from that loop is a petite silver-metal tag,  _Property of_   _J.B.B_ engraved in Bucky’s handwriting on the smooth shiny surface. The inside of the collar is suede and a pastel *your favorite color*. 

“Please,” You beg in a hushed murmur as you move your eyes away from the collar to look up at Bucky who is staring down at you like all the answers to the universe are hidden in the folds of your irises. 

“You don’t have beg me baby, not tonight.” He says keeps eye contact with you as he gently fastens the collar around your neck. The texture of the seude inner lining feels so  _so_ soft against the skin of your neck, your eyelids fall to half mast and your lips part silently.

Without asking Bucky knows how tight you want the collar tonight. It varies each day, each mood, and each scene, but tonight…tonight he knows how you need it. 

He pulls it tight enough that it feels like the same pressure when he has his hand on your neck. After finishing with the buckle Bucky slips a flesh finger between the collar and your skin and tugs, checking to make sure its the right feel, and pulls his finger back content. Your breath drags against the leather as you breathe and your head spins not from lack of breath, but from the subspace you just rocketed higher into. 

“There you go sugar, I’m right here go on up I’ll take care of you.” Bucky says in a tone so warm and kind and caring it weaves itself into the air around you and settles atop your head like a crown. 

Bucky leans back up and debates what to do next. As he thinks you remain staring up at him with these unseeing eyes and clear bright face, still feeling as close to him as you were a few moments ago because the collar represents his presence against your throat assuring you that you’re his and he’s not going anywhere. He remains with you always this way.   

Bucky’s about to pick you up and move you both back to the bed when you nuzzle his thigh. He looks away from the bed and back down at you, easily picking up your silent request for his attention, and watches as you move to sit in front of him between his legs. You let your butt rest against your heels as you run your nose up along the invisible seem of one of his bare inner thighs. 

His cock has long past since regained its full hardness and is standing at full attention, dripping precome from the red tip as you nose your way further and further up. You pause when you kneel up and your nose settles in the space between the base of his cock and his inner thigh. You flick your eyes up at him from under your lashes, asking for permission. 

“It’s yours baby,” Bucky breathlessly whispers as you keep his gaze and run your flat tongue up the underside of his cock. 

Bucky fists your hair in his flesh hand and grips your jaw in his metal one when you spend a too generous amount of time mouthing at the head; tongue flirting with his slit, but not ever taking him all the way in. His patience is non-existent at this point but also he knows that you teasing him is your way of saying,

‘ _Take what you want_.’ 

He growls low in his chest and slowly feeds his cock to you inch by inch. The  _taste of him_  reminds of you home like his scent or the sound of his voice does, and you don’t care if that’s fucked up or not all you know is white blinding happiness. Your eyes roll up into your head as he hits the back of your throat and holds you there. You relax your gag reflex muscles and breathe steadily through your nose, reminding yourself of your tricks. As he drags you up and down his cock, his pace quickly increasing, you realize with an enormous amount of frustration that you’re a bit rusty. Not that it’s your fault or anyone else’s. 

You hum and keep your hands clasped dutifully behind your back letting Bucky take and control and  _use_. He  _uses_ your throat with such the perfect combination of greed and tenderness it sends you literally so far under that you begin to struggle registering sound, a buzzing rings in your ears, like there is cotton stuffed in them. 

You can hear your own heartbeat and  _feel it_ against your collar. Everything is collecting on the edge of a brink you are not afraid to jump off of. Because Bucky is here and he’ll catch you when you fall. It takes you a long time to realize that Bucky’s cock is no longer in your mouth and that you are no longer on your knees. You eventually register the touch of sheets at your back and the warmth of Bucky’s big body hovering over you. You don’t even know if your eyes are open or closed.

Bucky is in true raw awe of you. The amount of trust you are giving him, even after him being gone for as long as he was, stuns him to the very core of himself. And it doesn’t stun him in a surprised way, it stuns him in almost a reminder, like his soul is saying ‘ _I told you so’._

“Kitten I need you to tell me your color,” Bucky checks in as he watches your eyes open to the world above you all wide and vulnerable, to land eventually on his steely gaze. Your focus swims around for a minute before you find him through your own haze of euphoria. 

You  _smile_. 

Bucky’s heart bursts. 

“Color, babygirl, I need a color.” He repeats patiently as he wipes some drool and precome from your chin with tender thumbs. 

 _Color._ The word takes a stupidly long time to settle in your brain, and it takes an even  _longer_ time for you to remember how to coordinate your tongue, vocal chords, and lips.

“Green.” You murmur before push out another word of equal importance, “ _Yours_.” 

Bucky can’t help the rush of untamed emotion pouring into his soul at that. He leans down and kisses you fiercely even if you can’t keep up with the finesse of the kiss. 

“You’re my good girl, listened so well.” He praises when he pulls back with his hands cradling your cheeks and his nose nuzzling yours. 

You preen at his words and sigh with more overwhelming – soul soothing – content. Bucky watches you silently as he reaches for the condom on the side table and slips it on quickly, cherishing you with his love as you are the most precious thing that he will ever know in this life. Once he’s all set he buckles down into you and pushes past your wet folds with absolutely no resistance. 

The groan that leaves Bucky’s parted lips washes over you like rain, cleaning out your dark gritty corners and tearing away the troubles sucking on your soul. When he bottoms out you throw your arms with the last of your strength over his neck and  _sob_. 

“Alright Princess,” Bucky concedes as he sweeps his hands under your knees and folds your legs up as far as they’ll go. “See you on the other side,” 

With that Bucky pulls out and  _slams_ into you so hard the force echos and rolls through your hips, up your torso, into the channel of your neck, past your collar, and rattles your fucking  _teeth_. You cry out half in surprise and half in utter submission, your hands drop from his shoulders as he sits up on his knees, banging into you like a screen door in a hurricane. He grunts as he picks a punishing pace and pounds his soul back into you; mixing himself into your veins, getting into  _your blood_  again, settling into the very marrow of your bones. 

Your souls hum as they  _finally_ embrace through the physical connection Bucky and you savagely take advantage of. The slap of his hips against yours blurs with the sound of your heart beat in your ear. You feel him in every place it counts, holding you, possessing you, loving you. Bucky fucks you with everything he is. It would be disrespectful for him to withhold himself even in the slightest. Because he  _trusts you_ to take everything he’s got just how you trust him to  _give you_ everything he’s got. He trusts that (if there was a problem which there never has been) you would safeword out if things became too much for you to handle. 

You give as good as you get, even in your state of complete numbness from receiving all this love, your tingling limbs answer to nothing and no one (not even yourself) but the call and demand of Bucky’s body moving against yours. The both of you become singular beings. Existing in this moment  _only_ for the other person,  _only_ for each other. The walls, the bed, the sheets, hunger, thirst, bills, work, life all of it falls away. It leaves you two in this world of endless exposure.  

Usually Bucky speaks to you during sex, dirty talk and riling you up, but you both have transcended so far past the base communication of spoken language that its not needed. It feels like you’ve been burning in the direct light of heaven for  _hours_  under Bucky, your body limp and your mind static of everything but  _him_. The build up of heat only peaks when Bucky collapses down and wraps his arms under your arms and around your torso, hauling your bodies flush against each other. Making it almost impossible to breathe. He sticks his face into your neck and holds on for dear life as he continues to pound into you. 

“James!” You  _think_ you hear yourself cry as you  _think_ you feel your arms wrap around his wide torso as well. Your fingers dig into the thick muscle of his back as you too stick your face in his neck – your favorite spot – and hold on for dear life. 

In the final moments before your shared orgasms, you move together like animals, raw and brutal and  _beautiful_. What does Bucky in though, what finally kicks him off the edge, is the delicate tinkling of the little silver tag that says ‘ _Property of J.B.B’_ dangling from your collar. 

“ _Mine_.” Bucky  _sobs_ into the wet skin of your neck as he smashes his hips into you once more and the ecstasy that hits you both rocks your souls so violently it causes you both to practically lose consciousness. 

You white out completely. 

Your connected bodies are shivering together, hips jerking uncontrollably in unfinished thrusts and muscles spasming with the exploding waves of pleasure wrecking havoc on both of your bodies and sanity. Bucky huffs wetly against your neck as he comes down, noticing your arms had fallen limp to your sides the second you peaked. He wants to lean up and check on you, but when his brain, pleasure-drunk and sloshing around his skull, tells his muscles to move he does nothing but continue to breathe and smell himself on you and sex in the air. 

Eventually Bucky gets his body to cooperate enough and he sits up. Your eyes are closed, your pretty red lips are parted, and your body is blushing and glimmering with light sweat. A cold zing runs through Bucky for a second as he waits to hear you breathe. When he does, the air wheezing and dragging in your throat from the collar, his heart crash lands back down from its rising panic and he fumbles with the collar. He does’t remove it (knowing you liked to keep it on for a bit after sex) but loosens it some so you can breathe normally. 

He fucked you –  _made love to you_  – so hard you passed out. That’s never happened before. 

Bucky doesn’t know whether to congratulate himself, feel guilty, or be worried. He ends up doing all three and positions you both so you’re on your sides facing each other. He touches your foreheads together and closes his eyes, just breathing you in. 

 

* * *

 

After the two of you surface enough to move, you get cleaned up and find your way to the nest of blankets by the fireplace. Bucky lays a warm gentle fire in the hearth and you both snuggle naked and intimate in the nest. 

As you fall asleep in each other arms the constellations twinkle and dance in celebration, fighting each other for a peek through the bedroom windows. Because there are many beautiful things in this universe that the stars have the privilege to see, but nothing is quite as reverent as an Earth’s human soul finding its other half. The magic of watching two separate beings somehow, just for a few moments, become whole –  _become one_  – is rare. Its part of the stuff that makes up the space in the universe, its one thread in a tapestry of other intangible phenomenons that exist on other planets in other galaxies. 

But right here, right now, the stars look down at Bucky and Y/n. Of all the beauty the universe provides,  _they chose to watch over you two._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay dokie! I hope this was worth the wait? Lemme know what you think if you wanna :) I also apologize for any grammar mistakes and stuff ugh xxx

**Author's Note:**

> PHEW I hope you liked it :) Now excuse me while I go bathe in holy water! xxx


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